MM #272: NVIDIA- Bitcoin Buy Prices | Tabitha Brown on Target Boycott, Cedric Nash on $100M & Divorce Advice

Summary

Market Mondays #272: NVIDIA, Bitcoin Buy Prices | Tabitha Brown on Target Boycott, Cedric Nash on $100M & Divorce Advice (August 19, 2025)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Market Mondays brings together the EYL Network’s Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings with market expert Ian King for a rich, wide-ranging discussion on:

• How to identify true catalysts in the stock market versus just "noise"
• Investment strategies in the current economic and geopolitical climate
• The latest with heavy-hitting companies (NVIDIA, UnitedHealth, Target, Apple, Amazon) and market movers
• Bitcoin and crypto buy prices
• Building generational wealth, mentorship, and asset-building advice from Cedric Nash
• Navigating business with big-box retailers like Target, especially for Black entrepreneurs, with insights from Tabitha Brown
• The importance of mindset, consistency, and community in building and maintaining wealth

The episode features in-depth, candid conversations with Cedric Nash (entrepreneur, investor, and author who built a $100M consulting firm) and Tabitha Brown (actress, businesswoman, influencer) on their journeys, lessons learned, and real-world strategies for success.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of the Markets & Geopolitics

Catalyst vs. Noise in Market News

• The team stresses understanding the difference between true “catalysts” (events that move markets) versus background “noise.”
• Example: Tensions around Putin/Trump and Zelensky’s visits are “more noise than catalyst” – not significant for real market movement. (07:41-11:41)
• “One of the biggest things I'm going to be talking about on Sunday is to understand what's a real catalyst versus what is noise.” —Ian King [07:41]
• Emphasis is on Jerome Powell’s upcoming speech and interest rate decision as the REAL catalyst. (09:09)
• Expect a market pullback or bull run depending on the Fed’s move—rate cut or not.

2. Investment Fundamentals — “Just Hold”

• Long-term holding beats short-term reactions: “Stop looking for every little palpitation in the market to determine if you're going to get in and out. The real game is to just hold forever.” —Ian King [11:55]
• Q2 earnings seen as less important than long-term forecasts and valuations, with concentration of gains among a few top tech names.
• “Every company is not Nvidia, every company is not Meta or Netflix… there’s so much hyper concentration.” —Ian King [12:20]
• Retail is bifurcating: value/budget stores (Walmart, COST, TJ Maxx) outperform discretionary/luxury brands (Lululemon, Nike, Best Buy) due to economic stress.

3. Crypto Markets: Bitcoin Buying Opportunities

• Bitcoin recent drop (from ~$121K to ~$115K) is a normal, non-crash pullback—do not panic sell. Buy zones identified around $113,950. (21:33-25:25)
• “Selling the upward moving asset is a mistake. I want to be clear about that.” —Ian King [21:33]
• Longer-term timeframes are essential; DCA (dollar-cost averaging) recommended.
• Correlation between bitcoin and interest rates; likely another small decline if rates are cut.
• “If you missed April when it was $77,000, or June… just wait for pullbacks, buy, and hold for the long term.” —Ian King

4. Top Stock & Crypto Picks: NVIDIA and Bitcoin

• NVIDIA and Bitcoin are the “MJ and LeBron” of investing right now.
• “The entire AI ecosystem is riding on the back of [NVIDIA].” —Ian King [25:34]
• If forced to go beyond those two, Microsoft and, to a lesser extent, Meta and Broadcom, are highlighted for foundational positions.
• “Let's not overcomplicate it. Sometimes the returns are just baked into the greatness of the underlying asset.” —Ian King [27:12]

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In-Depth Guest Segments

Cedric Nash: From $0 to $100M & Wealth After Divorce (31:44-67:08)

The Power of Mentorship & Consistency

• Mentorship matters: Cedric’s four millionaire mentors profoundly influenced his mindset and asset-building approach. Exposure to their frugal, asset-rich lifestyles set him on a wealth-building path in his 20s (32:14)
• Consistency over complexity: “Becoming a millionaire isn’t hard, it’s just slow.” Daily, consistent investing—even with setbacks—is the way forward. [43:06]
• Wealth-building is for everyone: Start early, start small, but stay consistent—regardless of student debt or late career stage.

Lessons from Two Divorces: Protecting Assets

• Divorce often devastates finances—frugality, renting instead of owning, and continuing to invest are key to recovery. (50:56-54:59)
• Prenup realities: Even with prenups, emotional/relationship costs are high. A good prenup protects both partners but can complicate marriages, especially with unequal starting assets. (55:00-60:24)
• “There’s no way I’m gonna work this hard and not… have [my sons] start from my shoulders, not from the ground.” —Cedric Nash [59:06]

Real Estate Asset Strategy

• Property selection: Prefer properties near water, transport, walkability, and job growth—do the capitalization rate math. Buy where you see government development plans. [61:05-66:36]

Everlasting Principles & Mistakes

• Never stop investing, even with debt.
• Asset allocation after mistakes: “If you fall out of love with a stock, don’t just sell—find another asset to put your money in.”
• Measuring progress and building willpower is as critical as knowing “the way.” [49:02]
• “The will is a bigger issue than the way in our community.”

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Tabitha Brown: Target Boycott, Resilience, and Brand Integrity (87:49-103:41)

Growth & The Dark Side of Success

• “While you grow, people change. There’s a difference in growth and change.” —Tabitha Brown [89:11]
• Success often brings “a dark side”—loss of authentic relationships, being seen more as an ‘opportunity’ than a person.

Brand Authenticity & Pivoting

• Her brand’s meteoric rise was unplanned, rooted in radical authenticity and obedience to purpose, not trend-chasing.
• “I used to conform...I just tried to be who God created me to be. That’s what started to change my life.” —Tabitha Brown [93:26]
• Only takes business opportunities in true alignment with her values: “You ain’t never gonna see Tab name on a beer. I don’t drink beer!” [95:09]

Target Boycott: Business & Community Impact

• Shares raw details on how Black-owned businesses in Target were hurt by the boycott—many weren’t consulted, most suffered, some lost shelf space (don’t assume all deals can just pivot to D2C). (96:52-100:26)
• Licensing deals, not just wholesale: partnerships have restrictions; not all products can be “just shipped D2C”.
• Worry about potential ‘set-up’ for Black business removal: “If a boycott happens… we’re the ones who buy those products. And the numbers… are what they go by.”
• Still supports boycott from a justice standpoint, but wants better internal communication and foresight.

Navigating Corporate Partnerships

• For aspiring entrepreneurs: Build contingency and mutual morality clauses into contracts, so either party can exit if major value misalignments arise. (102:53)
• “If you do something that can affect our business, I can exit. And vice versa.” —Tabitha Brown [103:17]

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News & Notable Market Movers

NVIDIA, China, and the AI Race

• China moves to halt Nvidia H20 chip purchases for government projects—illustrates just how essential Nvidia is globally. (76:47-80:20)
• "No company is this valuable on both continents." —Ian King [78:56]
• Even with export controls, Nvidia chips remain unmatched (“PS5 vs. PS2”).
• Entry points for Nvidia: $178.38 or down to $165.81 for a five-year hold. (108:59)

UnitedHealth and Buffett

• Berkshire Hathaway buys UnitedHealth on the dip, but only as a minor allocation. Don’t think this signals a long-term conviction—still real business concerns. (73:39)

Amazon, Shein, Temu & New Tariffs

• New US tariffs on <$800 goods from China hammer Shein/Temu, dropping engagement 51-77% and driving sales/traffic to Amazon (+9-12%). (115:21-117:02)
• Both Shein and Temu now considering building US warehouses/manufacturing to offset obstacles and tariffs.

QQQ vs. TQQQ

• Trade-offs between regular QQQ (institutional money, low volatility) and TQQQ (3x leveraged, higher gains/losses, unsuitable for most). (111:41-114:45)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “Becoming a millionaire isn’t hard. It’s just slow.” —Cedric Nash [43:06]
• “Selling the upward moving asset is a mistake.” —Ian King, on bitcoin [21:33]
• “Let’s not overcomplicate it…double-down on the thing that’s working.” —Ian King [28:59]
• “If I had to pick a company for the rest of the year, no company is this valuable on both continents as Nvidia.” —Ian King [78:56]
• “Your kids should start from your shoulders, not from the ground.” —Cedric Nash [59:06]
• Tabitha Brown on business partnerships: “Make sure it’s in alignment with you. Never try to duplicate what someone else has done.” [95:09]
• “Success brings a dark side...you lose a lot of people, and people start to dehumanize you.” —Tabitha Brown [89:11]
• “The will is the real issue—more than knowing the way.” —Cedric Nash [49:02]

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Important Timestamps

• Market catalysts vs. noise: [07:41]
• Long-term holding and “just hold” philosophy: [11:55]
• Bitcoin buy zones and advice: [21:33] [24:06]
• Nvidia, Bitcoin, Microsoft/Meta as top picks: [25:34-30:34]
• Cedric Nash on mentorship/wealth after divorce: [31:44-67:08]
• Tabitha Brown on Target, authenticity: [87:49-103:41]
• China halting Nvidia chips: [76:47]
• Amazon vs. Shein/Temu with new tariffs: [115:21]
• QQQ vs. TQQQ leveraged ETFs: [111:41]
• Nvidia new buy price range: [108:59]

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Tone & Style

The conversation is as candid, relatable, and energetic as ever—balancing straight talk about money, investing, and asset protection, with humor, personal storytelling, and real-world wisdom. Guests and hosts alike emphasize community, integrity, and resilience in wealth-building.

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Closing

The episode underscores the importance of adaptability, being informed, focused, and long-term minded in both investing and life, while staying open to learning from mentors, mistakes, and unexpected changes in any journey.

“Build community, share the research. That’s how we build wealth. Let’s win.” —Troy Millings [06:09]

Transcript

[Troy Millings]

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[Rashad Bilal]

What's going on y'? All?

[Troy Millings]

Happy Invest Fest week, y'. All.

[Ian King]

For sure.

[Troy Millings]

Happy Invest Fest week. I like it. I seen MG put that up in his post. I like that. I like the sound of that. So I wish everybody a Happy Invest Fest Week. Happy Monday. How y' all feeling?

[Ian King]

Excited? Nervous? Grateful? Yeah, tired. All the things energized everything at one time. How y' all feeling?

[Troy Millings]

Good? Excited. I think excited is is probably the number one feeling. Like I said, I just want everybody to come see it. What we've the offering we've put together. Shout out to everybody that took part in making sure that this happens. But excited man. Trying to get some some rest. Pre rest. I'm getting the pre rest because you ain't know there's no rest after that.

[Ian King]

No.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, Wednesday ain't no rest but pre rest Is important. How you feeling?

[Rashad Bilal]

I feel good. A lot going on. We got, we got a lot to talk about. So. Always too much time. Tune in to blackout Wednesday, 10 o' clock Eastern Standard Time. Invest Fest. We got a lot going on so we're not gonna drop our earning leisure episode. We will be back next week with a big one.

[Troy Millings]

Big. Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

But in the meantime we got Blackout got market Mondays today. And then of course the best fest on Friday starts Friday. Thursday's registration day. Get there 10 o' clock to 6 o' clock is registration GWCC and then 10 o' clock in the morning festivities start Friday. Workshops panels, vendor, marketplace. Open all day Friday. VIP night is Friday night. And then that just rolls into Saturday and Sunday. But it Invest Fest starts on Friday. Starts Friday Friday morning, Friday morning. Like I said you can, you can actually register and get your, your bracelet and all your credentials and everything. Thursday if you don't, if you want to, you know, avoid any line that's best practices. I highly suggest that if you're in Atlanta to do it Thursday. If you can't do it Thursday, then do it Friday. But highly, highly suggest anytime and take 10 minutes, just stop in, just get it done and then you'd be good for the whole entire weekend. We got 85 South Comedy show on Thursday.

[Troy Millings]

Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

Shout out to 85 South. Think there's still some tickets left for that. So get your Tickets, go to 85South.com or invest fest.com and yeah, we got some more announcements but we'll make, we'll make later on in the show.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, it's a lot going on. I see a lot of people are coming to town. A lot of people are creating their own little situations which is dope, man. I love gathering of like minded people but it's the common cause of being better and that's what the best fest is. I'm excited like I said. So make sure like shot he said that y' all register Thursday, man. Cause Friday if you, you should be doing now if you ain't doing already, you should be doing it tonight. Go to the app, go to the website, look at the schedule. Make sure you mark down the things that you absolutely cannot miss.

[Ian King]

Black Rock, please don't miss out that what's happening.

[Troy Millings]

Create your skills.

[Ian King]

Check the schedule.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, please.

[Cedric Nash]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's on the run of shows on the app and on the website as well. So check the website, check the app running shows on there full run of show all three days.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. And you will see us.

[Rashad Bilal]

You don't see us in any announcements.

[Ian King]

My phone bill is not paid. If you call me, I will not be available to next Monday I will be on stage Magic after his Magic Johnson on Sunday Market Mondays live on Saturday Kevin Stage will shop for blackout Friday. Be there. I can't wait to see y', all, hug y' all all the Hollywood stuff. But if you call me for anything this week, no the cuffs are my mom, dad, Xander and y'.

[Troy Millings]

All.

[Ian King]

Sorry. See you in Atlanta.

[Rashad Bilal]

See you in Atlanta.

[Troy Millings]

It's gonna be tough. Disclaimer it's gonna be tough, man do your own research. Our content is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It's very important that you do your own analysis based on your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice in connection with from a professional or independently research and verify any information that you find on our show and wish to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise. People do the research, continue to do the research, share the research. That's how we build community. That's how we build wealth. Let's win. Let's do it all y'.

[Ian King]

All.

[Troy Millings]

Love is love.

[Ian King]

I will say on Sunday though, my bad, my bad. On Sunday though, I'm giving every prompt that you need to use ever for investing on stage though. Presentation done. Best one Dense. Dense like you never are going to have to go anywhere else to learn anything about investing ever again. So see you Sunday.

[Troy Millings]

It is.

[Ian King]

And also I'm gonna give you my prop to let you know what competitive companies and what CEOs could replace the one at this tech company that needs to be replaced.

[Troy Millings]

Not my fault.gpt5 Claude the pressure is mounting. Pressure certainly mounting. So we're not gonna let it fail.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, we're gonna talk about we got two guests that's coming on today, actually two that will both be at Invest Fest. Cedric Nash will be joining us in a little bit and Tabitha Brown will be coming on later on as well. So we got a lot to talk about. So we're going to talk about probably on Blackout, the whole Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump thing, but stock futures drift higher ahead of Valinsky's visit. Kind of flat now as far as for the day, but there's, there's some anticipation that that could lead to some level of breakthrough potentially. So what, if any, will this have on the stock market?

[Ian King]

I think very little as far as the futures market expiration was just Friday. So you usually have a 25 to 28 day window to get all your trades done. But there's a hard deadline on which was the Cutoff and the 15th was that usually after expiration happens, the first two days are a little bit flat or slower. Do I think this will be enough of a blockbuster meeting to move the market one way or another? No. One of the biggest things that I'm going to be talking about on Sunday is to understand what's a real catalyst versus what is noise. Do I think the meeting would be great? Will tensions ease? Yes, but it's more noise than actual catalyst. So ES should drop back to 63.95 at some point this month, but this meeting won't be the reason why. Nowhere near close to it. More noise than catalysts, for sure.

[Troy Millings]

I'm with you. Even when I looked at the question, I thought more so for the futures market than anything. When you're talking about commodities, wheat obviously being something that's huge, that comes from Ukraine, I think it affects those markets. I don't see it overall affecting the entire market. It feels like there's always some geopolitical tension somewhere. And so the talks, we might see something positive, but I don't expect to see any type of large uptick. I think that the big day on our calendar this week is Friday, when Jerome Powell will be speaking.

[Ian King]

That's going to have way more impact and it's going to send more flooders into the market for sure.

[Troy Millings]

Right. A couple things could happen. Right. I mean, it feels like he's not going to succumb to the pressure of the president. But, you know, all analysts are pointing that there will be a rate cut here in September and originally started at a quarter point, but now they're talking that potentially it could be half a point, which would send the market up or right at the inverse. You could say, hey, things are not going where we expected. Valuations are out of control. And he says, you know what? We're not cutting rates at all. And then that mid to late summer pullback that we talked about is still right there. It'll be right in line. So I'm circling Friday as the day. I know there's. He met with Putin last week, Zelensky today. I'm waiting for drone pound. That's. That's the guy that I need.

[Ian King]

That's the catalyst.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, that's the guy I need.

[Ian King]

Yes. If they move the market or they don't do anything with the rates, it could have an impact. But if he decides, like you said, 2 basis points or 0.5.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian King]

We'll fly to the upside for sure.

[Troy Millings]

Well, yeah, we're gonna go. It's gonna be a nice run. It's gonna be a nice one. Yeah. I mean, do you think he succumbs to the pressure or do you feel like he even feels the pressure from the president?

[Ian King]

I think he feels it, but I think he knows he can't succumb to it. And it's a great lesson. I think all of us can talk about and at a time to a part of our conversation with Tabitha. When being a leader, you can't give into the pressure of the noise. Like linear focus on and I know this week for all of us, it's extreme focus on what the mission is. Mission is to make sure it's the best one that we've ever had at the best festival. No outside noise matters. Noise versus Catalyst. There can be a lot of noise and conjecture online and in public spaces, but at the end of the day, does it really make anyone's lives better? No. So true Catalyst pal speaking interest rate environment. True geopolitical threat. Like, if that Putin and Trump meeting didn't go well, it would have been some friction in the market. He made sure to roll out the proverbial red carpet to make sure even though he flew that jet over.

[Troy Millings]

Putin said the stealth bomber.

[Ian King]

Yeah. So separate put in chat. Catalyst versus noise. Catalyst is what's going to have impact on the market in your life. Not. Not the noise at all.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. I'm happy either way. If we have a little pullback here. Great. We got reserves ready to go and if we're going on this bull run that that goes through September and some people might say maybe it's been baked in already, we'll see. But yeah, it's gonna be important there.

[Ian King]

More importantly, just hold your money in the market. Stop looking for every little palpitation in the market to determine if you're going to get in and out. The real game is to just hold forever. Just hold. You'll be fine forever.

[Rashad Bilal]

So the real threat for retail isn't a QT Q2 earnings. Its forecast explain that.

[Ian King]

I think a lot of people are so worried about earnings. But if you look at where the Buffett indicator is and where the projections could be, are we to value and are the stocks at too have a place and are we setting up for a pullback based on what's being produced? Every company is not Nvidia, every company is not Meta or Netflix. And I'm going through my research stack and I Keep seeing there's 10 companies that are producing 40% of the gains. Not just the last two years, the last 25 years. They rotate the companies but there's so much hyper concentration. It makes me wonder are we a little bit too valued for everyone in crypto because bitcoin pulled back to 115. That's not a crash. I want to be very clear, like we're nowhere near. People were texting me this morning like.

[Troy Millings]

What do you think?

[Ian King]

I'm like, it's, it's a normal pullback for the crypto market but for something like the Russell 2000 which hasn't made a high since 2024. A little bit concerned about for mid tier tech companies and what AI is going to do to their business model, I am severely worried about. So I just think we need to have a little bit of a rebalancing and restructuring. But I don't think the earnings this quarter matter as much as what the valuations and true valuation will be going forward.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I think people have to understand the difference between their earnings and the forecast. Like you, you mentioned the earnings is what they did in the past quarter. The forecast is the guidance where they're.

[Ian King]

Headed and what's next.

[Troy Millings]

There's an interesting stat that, that I read today that 60 of the s P companies have surpassed their earnings per share forecast by a considerable margin in Q2. 60 of that 60%. 58 have raised their 2025 outlook. Right. Indicating optimism and future performance. And so that's a good time. That is the key is that you can't find the data on specific retail. Some retail will have, has done well, right? The cosplays of the world, the Walmarts of the world, TJ Maxx. This is a big week because all those companies are going to be reporting and then you have the laggards and.

[Ian King]

They'Re Target Dollar General.

[Troy Millings]

Oh man, you got my notes man. Target Dollar. Lululemon's in that, in that category.

[Ian King]

Lulu's falling apart in front what it's like.

[Troy Millings]

These are like these companies, they all have something very unique about them, right. That they, they, that their competitors have, right. Or they don't have that their competitors do have. They have discounted prices and large audience, right? So if you think about Walmart, you think about TJ Maxx, even Costco, that discounted economy, right. That people who shop there, they're looking for savings. Now you said something very important last week. You said the market and the economy are two different things, right? The market could be doing well. People are hurting and when people are hurting, they're looking to make sure that they spend at a budget. They're more conservative with their spending. And so you'll see companies like Walmart do well. You see company, those are economic friendly companies. Lululemon is almost, I mean it's retail, but it's discretionary. Right. Like how many times are you going to shop there? Which is why you see Lululemon pull back. You see Nike pull back even though they're, they're trying to creep back up. Best Buy. Right. Consumer electronics. Like how often are you going to buy a TV once you've got one.

[Ian King]

In comparison with Amazon is your biggest competitor?

[Troy Millings]

Well, there's that part. We're gonna talk about Amazon later.

[Ian King]

But like, and the rate of speed, that's what's concerning.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian King]

Starbucks, Nike, Lululemon, Dollar General all fell more than 30 in less than 18 months. Like cataclysmic decline. These are some of America's biggest retail brands and there seems to be no answer for Lulu, Nike or Starbucks, Target. These are four of our major retailers that no one has an idea of how like you don't even see CEOs going on platforms like ours and others to even vie to be the CEO to turn it around.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. So the what does the future look like? So yes, everybody thought, hey, tariffs are coming. Q2, we'll start to see some downtrend in, in terms of how people are looking. Their earnings should come if that hasn't happened. But what does the future outlook look like for some of these companies? That is very much in question, especially when you're talking about recycled material. Right. Over indexing inventory. How do you get rid of this stuff? This is why. And we talked about this probably like in our first year on, on earn your leisure about the importance of TJ Maxx. Right. They actually thrive in those areas. Oh, you have absolutely. Over inventory. We'll take it, we'll sell it at price. Macy's is another company. You want to talk about taking a hit. My gosh.

[Ian King]

Death spiral. Death spiral. 2016. Price is 52.48. They're currently at $13.16.

[Troy Millings]

Miracle on 34th.

[Rashad Bilal]

Big, big shout out to reform. If you're not familiar with reform, reform is a criminal justice, I guess organization that, that helps to rewrite laws. I know Meek Mill and Jay Z and Van Jones have worked with and reform's been a part of Invest Fest for three years now. I think they, they're doing a panel on Friday. You know, how to re reentry, I believe. And you know, it's a variety of different things in the criminal justice system that needs to be advocated for so that they're, they're a non profit organization that advocates for people inside of the criminal justice system, people been affected by the criminal justice system, but also community based organization as well. So one of the things that they're doing this is the last thing for Invest Fest is that they're giving away 50 tickets to community based people, people in the community. So if you go a general admission ticket, you enter code reform at checkout and you get a free ticket first, first come, first serve, 50 tickets. I would say if don't do this, if you're not gonna go, because, you know, if it's free, somebody in Alaska that got to go to work on Sunday and has a late shift on Friday or just. But like if you're in Atlanta, if you definitely can physically make it, right, because it's only a couple days. So if you, if you're actually in a position to make it, then utilize the, the code, but don't take an opportunity from somebody that actually can be there because just, you just want to just use the code, right? So, but thank you. To reform. We're appreciative that they, that they've come back to Invest first for the third year and appreciative that they're offering this, you know, incentive for, for people that may have issues economically and may not be able to afford a ticket, but can still come. So it's always good. And you never know. You know, One of those 50 people might be speaking at Invest Fest in a couple years, right? And One of the 50 people might be actually, you know, a vendor in a couple years. 150 people might actually be, you know, somebody that we're talking to on market Mondays in a couple years. You never know how some level of inspiration and education can change somebody's trajectory, especially young people, but anybody really. So take advantage of it if you're interested in going to Invest Fest. And like I said, finances might be hard. You know, it's tough times out here right now. So into code reform at checkout. And there you have it. First 50, first come, first serve.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. Shout out to reform, man. They become a staple inside of the vendor marketplace. I know we pulled up a few years ago when Sean was there. That was a dope conversation, man. And so, yeah, man, they're helping out the people. Shout out to all our return assistants. Shout out to everybody that is part of, of, you know, been incarcerated. And it's been coming out and trying to figure out what to do, what angle to Go who to surround themselves with. It's, it's equally as important as anybody else. And so you're going to see a lot of more work with us in that population as well, man. Because we just feel like it's important. A lot of people are getting the information. Had they had it prior to, you know, making some of these choices, things would have been a lot different. But no better time than now, man. So shout out to reform again.

[Ian King]

Yeah, yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay, so let's talk about crypto. Since you mentioned it. Yeah, yeah. A little slump in the crypto market for all of the major coins. But of course anytime bitcoin has some level of pullback, then, you know, people take note. So yeah, bitcoin lat, just last week I believe it was at 121,000. Now it's at 15, 115,000. So you know, slid around $6,000 in a short period of time. So is, is this something that people should start looking at buying opportunities? This is something that they should be concerned about. Should they be selling their bitcoin? Like what, what exactly is the advice given for bitcoin?

[Ian King]

Selling the upward moving asset is a mistake. I want to be clear about that. If you're looking for entry 1 13, 950, I like a lot. If you're looking to hold for the next five years this move, and I want to be clear, like the bigger the reward in terms of return, you're going to have a deeper drawdown cycle. This is not one of them. I know it may be uncomfortable or if you're new to investing in bitcoin, but from 125 to 115 that could happen a few years ago in the hour. So 113950 is an area that I really like. But the things that I want to keep stressing is to stop worrying about the intraday movement. If you're actually looking to build generational wealth. I'll tell you the time frames I want you to lose to be a sniper on your long term Sunday at Invest Fest. But there's no reason to panic over this. If you're looking to hold for a four or five year period. And too often looking at the noise of the daily prevents you from getting wealthy on the long term. Like you can turn your life around holding some great assets for a five year period. Don't worry about this drop at all. This should not even be news.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, this is not, this is very common. I think what, what a deeper dive would be to look at the relationship between interest rates and the price movement of bitcoin for sure. And so when there was no talk for the past six months of having interest rates lowered, you watched bitcoin ascend. Now we're here nearly in September, which everybody has circled as potentially a interest rate cut. You see here in August that it's pulled back a little bit. In fact, if they confirm at some point that there is going to be a half basis point cut, I would see that it falls just a little bit more. Does that mean you should, you should, if it's an asset that you believe in for the long term, you should always be investing. I don't know how many times Chai's going to tell you the dollar cost average. That should be your strategy. This isn't like oh hey, it's pulling back now, should I, this is not.

[Ian King]

One of those moves.

[Troy Millings]

You should always have been investing in it. So it's never a bad time unless you know you, you bought it at an all time high and it pulls back. But you get the education piece is important. So watch that, watch that relationship, watch the news around interest rates and watch bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a whole. We even saw Ethereum last week hit us all time high, which is impressive. So yeah, just, just be mindful of.

[Ian King]

It all the week of June 23rd it was at a hundred thousand. Last week it went to 125 000. Of course there's going to be some pullback and, and a healthy asset. It has ranges in which you want like you don't want an asset to be 25 up in four or five week period because the drawdowns are going to be heavier. So. And then in April was that 77,000. Maybe you missed out in April and maybe you missed out on a week of June 23rd. But no, just, just wait for a pullback. Like I said, if it gets to like113,950 buy in hold and then we should probably be at I don't know, 134 by September, October, hope for the long term. And even if he bought it to high, if you just wait three or four months, not be right, it will be back. The thing that really hurts you is not having enough time in the market and waiting for all these moments because it's a lot of people who will hear this today and then miss it out and then it runs up and like well I got in. Well, I didn't know if I should, should have got in. Just, just buy it at the prices I call whole four or five Year period and you'll be okay.

[Rashad Bilal]

So following that, what's one stock or cryptocurrency you're personally holding through the end of the year that you believe has the greatest upside potential.

[Ian King]

I know y' all tired of me talking about it. The one I love. And replace Apple with Nvidia. The entire AI ecosystem is riding on the back of them. Are there others that could be parabolic now if we look into the future talking about ipo, open AI and Andero right now though in publicly traded markets, all tides they are the tide that will lift all AI boats sometimes and. And like okay, if you were Phil Jackson, game on the line, shoddy. Who you drawing a play up for? Isolation. MJ getting the ball right.

[Troy Millings]

That's a fact.

[Ian King]

Let's not over complicate it. I know we want to look at BBAI and isolation. You need to win. Throws the ball to Nvidia.

[Troy Millings]

I mean I felt like was this a trick question? You know what I was going to.

[Rashad Bilal]

Do about the crypto.

[Troy Millings]

But that. So that's what I was going to say. If. If we had to invest, I clear cut. It's Nvidia is Bitcoin. Right. Like that we know that if it wasn't those two, like this is Jordan. This is LeBron. Right. One. However you want to put the order as the greatest. Right. If it wasn't one of those two.

[Ian King]

We'Re not doing that today.

[Troy Millings]

What, what. What would be the company Right. We like where I think everybody that watches Market Mondays understands the importance of Nvidia. That would be the answer. And Bitcoin.

[Ian King]

There may be some people who are new who don't know.

[Troy Millings]

Okay, so those are the two answers. Now let's challenge ourselves and let's say if it wasn't those two. Is there one?

[Ian King]

Yeah. The other one I call Microsoft. So okay, if. If I'm an investor in America going back to 1920, should I invest in New York City or Iowa City? Iowa. The returns sometimes are just baked in the greatness of what the underlying asset is. When we first started to show I'm like the companies that have the most money are going to invest in a tech that matters the most. Microsoft is the greatest illustration of that. So I know sometimes we may want the new thing and this is one of the things that stops sometimes our community from getting as wealthy as we could. We want to diversify into assets that have no chance of being a star asset. This isn't my thought. This is what BlackRock and Vanguard set the and that other entity I can't talk about the big. The big three, say open, even for the future. What's next? Open. AI and Andaru. They're next. Now it's Nvidia and Microsoft. The entire ecosystem of AI is on the back of Nvidia. Could you allocate to amd, which I've had forever too. Yes, but Nvidia is going to give you outsized gains. And we were there at Nvidia. I can argue there's not a CEO in America that's better than Jensen right now. Nowhere near close.

[Troy Millings]

I'm with you. I'm with you. I wanted to stress that because, like, people will overcomplicate this, right? Like you tell them in video and they were like, nah, but what else is there? All right, Microsoft. I mean, I know those two, but what else? And I'm like, yo, bro, those are, those are two right there. Like, let's, let's start with those. Let's, let's go. We can talk about other ones. But like, and if there were up.

[Ian King]

And coming ones that had extreme promise, like, I'll break down even. Okay. The thing that made me love Nvidia so early is the market share that they had in the space they were occupying. For those who built computers and actually bought the chip, the chip was better. Like, even when I'm like, Intel is dead. If you compare the Nvidia chips to intel, it was like horse and buggy versus a Porsche. No comparison. And it had 80% of market share. I think sometimes we over complicate things and the real gains come from doubling down on the things that's working. There's a reason why y' all don't have Rap Fest this weekend. It's Invest Fest. I like Lil Yachty. I don't like what he said, but that's not the biggest driver of return. Double down on the thing that's working. A lot of times people will trick you out of your spot and say, well, you should do something different because they don't want you to see you be in a spot that they're not currently in.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I, I'm with you. I'll just throw two other ones in there. Obviously I'm leading with those and maybe shot. You can maybe if you differ, I would be interested to hear. But I'll put Meta in there for sure. Based on everything I've read and some of the conversations I've had with them. I put them there and I'll put Broadcom. You didn't say, are we at that point now where the 2Tech2 index is, is Nvidia Microsoft, maybe not Apple. Microsoft. Are we there?

[Ian King]

Tim Cook has I told you I want to mess up the relationship? I was gonna say it on stage. I'll give it to December.

[Troy Millings]

Okay. Okay.

[Ian King]

If they don't make a major acquisition by then, there will be a replacement December 1st.

[Troy Millings]

All right.

[Rashad Bilal]

All right, well, let's, let's bring our first guest up. We got Cedric. All right, Cedric Nash, thank you for joining us. Entrepreneur, investor.

[Troy Millings]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

Author is no great person. Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Great.

[Ian King]

Let's leave with that.

[Rashad Bilal]

Great man is known as the millionaire. Your millionaire mentor. Founder of the Oakland Consulting. He built a 90 million dollar firm, empowers communities through his books, coaching and he has a summit, Black wealth summit in D.C. i think I know we did. I believe Ian did as well participate in that in years past. So one of these people that's like, you know, the entrepreneur that's been doing it behind the scenes for a long time and now we're starting to step out and people are starting to, you know, see them on social a little bit more, stuff like that. But first and foremost, thank you for joining us and thank you for being at Invest Fest this weekend. Definitely looking forward to it for sure.

[Cedric Nash]

Hey, thank you for having me. You know, I feel like I've arrived. I'm on eyl. This is a chance of a lifetime, man. Happy to be with you brothers.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, no, no problem. So, all right, let's, let's, let's get some gems if we can. I know, you know, you became a million by 32. So what were the key decisions in your 20s that made that possible for you to be a millionaire in your early 30s for the people that's watching that, you know, might, might still be in that, in that age range or even older, but still just trying to figure it out.

[Cedric Nash]

You know, the biggest thing is, is the reason why I call myself your millionaire mentors, because I had the privilege of having four millionaire mentors that poured into my mindset since the 11th grade. So when I was coming out of college, all I could think about was how could I mimic the lifestyle of my four millionaire mentors, which were rich in assets and poor liabilities, but they had a very easy lifestyle. And so I was really drawn to that. And because of my access to them, you know, I came out of college on fire, running to invest. In fact, as soon as I graduated from college, I bought my first piece of property from saving money working as a consultant installing systems for medical doctors. And so I saved up enough money coming out of college to buy my first condo, which I did. And so, and then I continued going. So I basically created a, a wealth building system, starting with a person's paycheck that I'm hoping to talk and share about with at Invest Fest. That allowed me to continue to build assets. And that was really the biggest thing is just that exposure to the right mentors and also reading a lot of books. Coming out of college, one of my mentors inspired me to read a lot, kept reading a lot of books on investing. So when I came out, I was just on fire, ready to do it. I was also on fire to live frugal. You know, it's like I grew up at a different time timeline where, you know, we didn't do bottle service. Right. We went to happy hour and the wings were free. Right. So the drinks were cheap and the wings were free. And it was just a different time. So now, you know, there's just, you know, there's this emphasis. Emphasis, you know, emphasizing of kind of ball and hard and, you know, rolling hard. So young people have a lot of pressure on them.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Invest Fest is such a unique time. And again, thank you for taking part in it this year. You talk about the importance of having mentorship, but I think a lot of people are walking into this weekend as the mentee. So what are some of the characteristics that people should have when they're looking to seek someone of guidance and of mentorship?

[Cedric Nash]

That's really great. It's a great question, Troy. I actually wrote a chapter in my book titled how to find a millionaire Mentor. And I break it down, I go into deep details about where to find them, how to find them, and you can find them in places like Invest Fest. That's the interesting thing about it. You find them in conferences, you find them at churches, you find them at fraternities, if you happen to be a member of the baddest fraternity of the land, which Robert Smith is. But yeah, you find them, you know, you find them all over and the, you know, so. So that's where you can find them. And the important thing is just how you establish that credible relationship with them to where, you know, you're actually following their advice. A lot of people don't like to follow the mentors. You know, they want a mentor, but they don't want to do what the mentor tells them to do. And I was like that too at times. And they want a mentor and they don't want to. They want to doubt that the mentor is credible. It's like, oh, Gee, you know, that was back in your days. Things have changed, man. I have made. You know, like I said, I wouldn't be in government contracting if it wasn't for one of my millionaire mentors who said, hey, you should consider government contracting, because he was. And that was Tim Welton. He died recently. In fact, at Invest Fest, I'm going to show people his stock portfolio that he left me, which is amazing. And there's going to be a lot of interesting insights on how he looked at investing in the market.

[Ian King]

But.

[Cedric Nash]

But it was because I listened to Tim reluctantly, you know, that I was able to. Grew my business to now to $100 million and doing mostly federal government contracting. So mentorship is just important. It's.

[Troy Millings]

It.

[Cedric Nash]

It challenges you. And he continued to challenge me. Right. You know, I'm sorry to go on, but he, you know, it's a story I'll never forget. He had a house in Naples. He lived in Oakland, California, around the corner from me. And I would stop by and visit him from my house in St. Pete, driving down to Miami. And one time, I remember Tim was saying, he says, you know, I was telling him how things were going, you know, how, you know, winning this contract, that contract. He says, that's great. He says, by now you should have a million dollars stacked up. I was like, right. I. I was saving, but I was putting so much money in real estate that I wasn't creating liquid cash.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Cedric Nash]

And so I left Tim's house and I said, shit, I gotta do that. Years later, I go back to Tim, I said, tim, this is another conversation you guys have. I said, tim, you know, how much money do you think is needed to retire? Right? I thought the number was 5 million. I thought that was a good number. And Tim was like, shit, this is how he was. He was very crass. He was a cute. He's like, shit. When I retired, I had 15 million. I was like, damn right. So every single time he would do that shit, it would challenge me to level up, to level up. And that's the power of a good mentor. First of all, they're real. They're not just a guy that's basically flashy. They've got real going on. And then second of all, they challenge you. And then third of all, if you don't step up, they won't continue to take your call. If they don't see that you're basically putting in the work and making a difference, they're not going to waste their time with you. Because good ones don't have Time, Right.

[Ian King]

Question for you. I can't let you leave this off on that cliffhanger. What insights did you get from Tim's portfolio that you can share with our audience tonight?

[Cedric Nash]

I can't let you skate out, Ian. I'm gonna share it when I present. Man, I can't give us a one tip.

[Ian King]

Come on, brother.

[Cedric Nash]

One tip. Yeah, one tip. That, that it's gonna be interesting because you talk often about. Because you, you focus a lot on tech. He had zero tech.

[Ian King]

Interesting. Okay. What industry, what industry was he focused on?

[Cedric Nash]

He was across the board on, from, from, from utilities, banking, just solid, solid core stocks. And I'm sure his wife still has that portfolio. He just died a couple of years ago from Parkinson's. But it was like, I'm going to show the 14 stocks that Tim had about 15 million spread across earning $750,000 a year in income. So you know where he was getting the income from, right?

[Ian King]

Yeah, exactly.

[Cedric Nash]

So, yeah, zero tech. Just because that wasn't his background. And he hoped he. When he did federal government contracting, he did security guard services and was stacking his cash. But he was just so disciplined with his money that. But not only that, he lived well. I mean, he. All his properties were paid for. So people wonder where I mimic myself from. Why do I do the same things? It's because of my millionaire mentors, and that's why it's so important.

[Rashad Bilal]

Talk about your consultant, your consulting firm, as far as, like, I t right on the tech side. Speaking about tech, that's kind of your background. Talk about the company, how you scaled the company. Like, give, give the audience, you know, overview of that.

[Cedric Nash]

You know, it's interesting.

[Ian King]

I'm.

[Cedric Nash]

I'm kind of untraditional in that I was a bootstrapper. I started my company from my own savings and I just kept building and building one client at a time. So the good news is I own 100% of it and I don't have to worry about anyone coming after me. And we remain debt free. And I'm in the space what they call enterprise application software. That's something that Robert Smith knows all too well because that's what he does. He buys enterprise application companies. The companies I work with are the largest software companies in the world in their space. So if you look at Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, Microsoft, you look at pretty much Chevron. All these companies use their software to run their business. So it runs their accounting, it runs the hr. It's called enterprise application software. It runs their manufacturing, their supply chain software. It runs all of that. And so what my company does is we, not only we, we sell the software to these companies as a reseller, but we also implement the software. So for example, even the army, The army spent $9 billion implementing SAP and they continue to steal money, spend money putting in SAP, and so we have contracts to provide that support. I happen to be very, you know, kind of very rare business, especially black owned business that work in these software products. The one that we're really hot on now is a product called Workday, which is a HR solution product that used to. The founder of Workday used to be the founder of PeopleSoft. And when Larry Ellison from Oracle took over PeopleSoft on a hostile takeover, kind of like without Dave Duffield knowing it, he stole basically the company. And so now PeopleSoft has been consumed into Oracle. Well, Dave's response was six years after being acquired was to create Workday, which is a fully cloud based enterprise application system for finance and hr. And, and it has taken the world by storm. So Dave is worth about 10 billion. I had the privilege of meeting him, but he, he, he created a software product that was just amazing. We happened to get involved in that software. We sold the state of Maryland and now we're putting in payroll for the state of Maryland, we're doing work for the state of New York and we're doing work for the state of California, all of these agencies that have bought this software. So it's amazing software. A lot of people aren't familiar with that space, but let me just tell you something. I've been making money off this offer for the past 30 years. Past 30 years. Steve Jobs has a favorite quote. He says you can't connect the dots looking backwards, you can only connect them forward. But you have to believe that your dots are going to connect somewhere in your future. And so you have to keep connecting those dots no matter what. You have to believe in faith, karma. And he says this has made all the difference in his life. I'm saying that is because we make choices every single day that could make a difference as to how we're going to succeed in the future. And so that's the interesting thing about entrepreneurship and the whole nine yards. You never know. Entrepreneurship is an experiment. You just have to trust your gut and work your butt off and just hope that the dots connect. But I tell you one thing, in a speech I gave in Houston not too long ago, if you look back at your path, even you as eyl, all the dots make sense. But sometimes it'll make sense moving Forward, but they definitely do looking backwards.

[Troy Millings]

I just want to put a fire in the chat for you for taking over the state of Maryland in New York. We just can't breeze over things like that. We gotta, we gotta applaud these things as they happen. We. We have a unique audience. Obviously. We have people who are just graduating or just entering college and graduating. Then we have mature earners. Right. This mindset of getting to the million is very important to both audiences. What. What type of advice do you give them? Because the kid who's leaving college is trying to get a job just to pay back student loan. The person that's of a mature age or mature earners are saying, you know what, it's kind of late in the game for me. I don't know if it's going to work. What is your advice to. To both demographics?

[Cedric Nash]

My advice is, and I say this all, all the time is becoming a millionaire isn't hard. It's just slow, right? And so you have to. You have to kind of find a way to be consistent. And that's the tough part. That's the tough part of the deal, is the consistency pays off. Now you guys come out here every Monday, and whatever time you guys come out, and you guys are constantly pouring these concepts and these ideas in people's head as to what they should do with their money. The big question is, what do they do with it? And do they stay consistent despite the fact that the economy's going up and down, stock market goes up and down. Do they just basically hold their head down and become consistent? And I'm trying to change around so my light gets better. But the whole point is, is like, you know, it's really. It's all about consistency. It's all about you guys, you know, know the principles. Dollar cost averaging, consistently just pounding. And that's what it is. And a lot of people. And that's why, you know, developing the millionaire mindset is so key, because if your mindset's vacillating constantly, you know, and then not only that, marketers are spending billions of dollars to kind of make sure that you buy their stuff. Go buy mine. No, buy mine. Right? And so it's so easy to fall off your game and you lose that consistency. That's really what it is. It's like it's investing all the time. I hate to say it. It's not the Dave Ramsey approach. It's not paying down debt and then start investing. It's like investing regardless if you have debt, right? That's really what it is, and then invest your way out of debt, because your investments have a better. Can do a better job of paying off your debt than you can. And so that's. That's the one thing in our community that I'm so passionate about, is that we just got to get started investing, even if it's 5, 10, 15, $20. Right. And you'll, You'll. You'll be amazed as you start seeing the results, how that inspires you to invest more and buy less. That's the thing to me, Troy, that I think is just so key.

[Ian King]

What principles do you think are everlasting when it comes to becoming a millionaire? And what mistakes do you see a lot of people making now? Because there's so much more information, the pipeline of investing information has gotten wider. But what mistakes do you see people making that are easily avoidable?

[Cedric Nash]

I think that this is what happens, man. And I. I completely get it. And I don't want to touch. To broad brush this and make people think that. I don't get that. There are setbacks along the way. I mean, I wrote a chapter in my book called Navigating the Setbacks. There are so many setbacks along the process, and. And it feels like the moment you get started, you get basically derailed by this expenditure that you have or by this thing that you have, and it throws you off your game and you stop. And so I think that, you know, the name of the game is to kind of just continue to stay focused despite what's going on and deal with your setback as you have to, but then get back in the game, get back up again, and keep, keep moving. Now, I know these sounds like basic principles and not investing principles, but they really, really are. I mean, Warren Buffett didn't become how he was because he did not make mistakes from time to time, you know that mistakes happen. I make mistakes. You just get back up. I never forget during. I'll give you an example. In 2007, 2008, during the housing crash, I think I had, you know, owned some Mutual, Washington Mutual, which. Washington Mutual was a big loan company.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Cedric Nash]

And. And the stock was about to. To tank. And I got on the plane to come to my house in Tampa, and I was like, shoot, I meant to sell the stock. By the time I landed, the stock had tanked. But you know what I did? I bought Berkshire Hathaway B. 70 bucks a share. Right. So the whole point is, is like, if you fall out of love with the stock or if you fall out of love with A company don't just sell and put the money in your pocket and pay the capital gains. I mean, you're going to pay the capital gains if you have one. You know, basically buy something else, find another asset or another. I mean, and look at Berkshire Hathaway be now. I made the biggest mistake by not putting more into Berkshire Hathaway. B. Oh, I made a huge mistake.

[Troy Millings]

477.

[Cedric Nash]

Yeah. What is it? Four what?

[Troy Millings]

477.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Cedric Nash]

477.

[Ian King]

That was a trade off. Yep.

[Cedric Nash]

Yeah, about it. 70 bucks. Yeah. That's like an index, right?

[Ian King]

Yep.

[Cedric Nash]

It's so diverse. So I love what you guys are doing, and I just can't applaud you enough for what you're doing. You guys been doing this for five, six years, seven years now, Troy?

[Troy Millings]

Yep. Just about. Yep. Yeah.

[Cedric Nash]

And so the whole point is there should be so much results from the effort that you guys are putting forth. But if you. If they don't have results is because people aren't being consistent. They're falling off, they're. They're losing their focus and they're not paying it. You know, it's not popular, it's not hot anymore. So let me go to something else. No, this is your life, man. Your money is.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Cedric Nash]

It's your livelihood. And now that it's your kid's livelihood, if you're doing it right, you can't change our community unless, like I said, you know, there's the will in the way. Right? So you guys have been teaching the way for seven years. You, myself, and a whole bunch of other folks that you guys know have been teaching the way to our community. And we come on and we say, well, no one's really. I had nobody in my family with money to teach me anything. Well, you guys have been doing it. The problem is the way is no longer the problem. And it never was the problem. The problem was always the will. The willingness to do what it takes. Right. The willingness to make the right sacrifices, the willingness to be consistent. That's where our success comes from, within our community. So what we have to do, all four of us, is we got to work on that will part. Right? Because we're never going to change the racial wealth gap if we don't fix the will.

[Troy Millings]

Right.

[Cedric Nash]

You know, the Bible says there, where there's a will, there is a way. Because when there's a will, you'll find a way. So we have to stop using this way as an excuse for not doing what we need to do and start digging Deeper to say, well, why do I, why do I quit? Why do I fall off? Why do I, you know, why do I basically not. Why do I fail to be consistent? Why do I allow setbacks to prevent me from pushing forward what I need to do? And that's what we've got to do. We got to push past these moments. And you know, that's, that's where this, that's for success really is. It's pushing past those difficult moments.

[Ian King]

As a follow up, how do we raise the will of the community at scale?

[Cedric Nash]

I think you, first of all, you, they, they acknowledge it and to, to make them acknowledge it. And it's a repeated, repetitive thing, right? It's one of those things that we can't have this one, this one zoom session or this one podcast session and think that we're going to move the needle. It's like pounding. It's like pounding. It's like constantly challenging and checking and basically having people check in and having them measure it. You have to measure your success. Right? That's what I do. At the Black Wealth Growth Challenge, we measure your growth challenge. We want to know, are you making progress? And not everybody on the call really does it and it bothers me. And one time I want to, I want to basically say, man, am I not being effective? Am I not? And, but what I realized though, is that if they're in the room and they're hearing other people get progress eventually. There you go. There you go.

[Rashad Bilal]

So let me ask you this. Switching gears, but also important conversation when it comes to wealth. I know, you know, in your life, everybody has challenges. You, you went through a divorce.

[Cedric Nash]

Oh, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So talk about how you can navigate keeping your wealth after a divorce.

[Cedric Nash]

I love that, you know, and Rashad, that's a book I actually want to write. It's like how to Become a Millionaire After Divorce. Because, you know, divorce wipes out people financially. It's a complete reset. And, you know, I went through a divorce, you know, kind of at a worse time, at a worst time when, you know, my business was in 2002, 2003 was the big.combust and I was into consulting.

[Troy Millings]

Big.

[Cedric Nash]

I used to work for Deloitte and Ernst and Young and I. And I was on my own at that time. And clients didn't want to see a consultant after Y2K. They're like, we're tired of spending all this money on advice. And, you know, Y2K wasn't as big as it was and the dot com isn't as big as it was supposed to be. So business was tough. I mean, 2002, 2003, and I was in red ink. And that was the same time my ex wife, my son's mothers and I decide to go our separate ways. And, and I was left with a half a million dollars in debt from, with Wells Fargo Bank. My line of credit was called because I was using my line of credit to keep the business afloat. And so, you know, so if you're getting a situation, you find yourself getting divorced. I think the first thing that you have to really do is kind of focus on your offense, focus on keeping your income strong, focus on your skills, and then also you have to be steady about what you do with your money because now you have less money to, to do. And for, for me, I had to stop paying for my son's college funds, you know, for a few years until I re sorted out my finances, right? And my divorce, you know, caused me to sell my big house in, in Oakland Hills and pretty much give her all the proceeds. But I kept my apartment buildings. So if you have multiple assets in your family, what I did with my ex wife, I was like, okay, we've got this, we have this equity in our house. I'm buying out my apartment buildings, the ones I had in Jersey city back in 2003 and in D.C. right. So I bought her out of those and held onto those. And there was a year when I couldn't even pay myself. So people think I got a job and I get a divorce, and that's bad. But think about being an entrepreneur, getting a divorce, having to split up half of your assets and having to pay alimony and child support and trying to figure out your life moving forward. But what was really helpful, Troy, is about was the fact that I kept a frugal mindset and I was really responsible in doing what I was supposed to do to my ex wife and my kids. So I kept a frugal mindset and I just went low to the ground, man. People wouldn't have known it, but I was not spending money on clothes, I wasn't spending money on anything. But I held onto my investments and in fact, I figured out a way to convest more because I had assets. So my advice to people going through that is to develop this frugal mindset. You'll lay low and keep moving forward, keep investing your way, and in time you'll see your way out of it. And so that's really, really key. And one of the things, like I said, that worked for me was buying real estate in Jersey City in 2003. And if you guys live in New York and know what's happening with Jersey City, it's exploded, it's booming, it's booting, it's booming. So it's a matter of basically, make sure you take care of your responsibility, make sure you do what you have to do. Continue to invest, continue to work on your income, and you'll dig your way out of it. But too many people look at divorce as saying, I don't want to make no more money, because if I do, she's going to hit me up for more child support. I'm like, don't punk out. Just, you know, be responsible. Do what you have to do, but get busy on your offense. Get busy building up your income and continue to invest. And although it may not feel like this 10, 15, 20 years down the road, like Steve Jobs, connecting the dots, looking forward, you'll see that it worked out. My three boys graduated college. One of them got his MBA in finance. You know, we have a great relationship. My net worth is gone up probably, you know, probably 15, 20 times since then because I didn't give up. And that's really what it's all about.

[Rashad Bilal]

What about the prenup?

[Cedric Nash]

Oh, yeah. Well, I hate to air my dirty laundry, but I've been married twice. But anyway, so the first time I didn't have.

[Rashad Bilal]

You got divorced twice?

[Cedric Nash]

I got divorced twice.

[Troy Millings]

That's the next book.

[Cedric Nash]

That's the next book.

[Troy Millings]

For real?

[Cedric Nash]

Yeah. I've been divorced twice. You know, which is interesting, Rashad, because my second wife, her and I were really still good friends. She worked at my company for a lot of years.

[Troy Millings]

She's.

[Cedric Nash]

She's a lawyer. And what was interesting about is we came into the. Into the marriage unequally, financially yoked, which was challenging. Right. My net worth is here. She was, you know, she was about 10 years younger than me, and she.

[Troy Millings]

Can you raise your hand a little higher? We're under the screen.

[Cedric Nash]

Oh, thanks.

[Troy Millings]

All right, there.

[Cedric Nash]

My net worth was here and hers was down here. So in the prenup, you know, which that started that set the relationship off. The wrong foot. Right?

[Troy Millings]

Huh?

[Ian King]

The prenup or the imbalance, which it.

[Cedric Nash]

Often does, even though women say, well, I'll gladly sign a prenup, that's no problem. Okay. Well, I didn't really know what a prenup was. A lot of people don't know what it really is. So I went and hired an attorney through my recommendations, and my attorney was putting my prenup together. And we were getting married, and he was running behind on getting it done. So it was kind of forcing some pressure there. So by the time he delivered prenup and her attorney reviewed it, she was like. She felt like she. She really couldn't trust me anymore. She already had doubts anyway, but she really felt like she couldn't trust me. Because what a prenup is, is when you get married, there are inalienable rights to a marriage that the state gives you right. And so when you get a prenup, what it's saying is, I'm waiving my right to this, his income. I'm waiving my rights to this, his assets. I'm waiving my rights to all these things. And you're like, wait a minute. It feels awkward. It's like, I have a right for that, and then now I'm giving it away. So a lot of people. It kind of blows their mind, Even though there are concessions that says, well, if we got a divorce by this time, you would get this. But, hey, you're a lawyer. You make good money. It's like, you know, and you have a child, and I got three boys. So it was very, very difficult. And the moment that we signed it, which was, like, it was supposed to not be through duress, but it ended up being kind of through duress because she waited till the last minute right before we got married. It just put the marriage on the wrong foot. So after dating for 10 years and being married for five years, we ended up calling it quits. And my prenup, you know, it held. And so what's interesting is about the prenup is, like, a lot of people say they want it until they read it, and they have their lawyers give them feedback, and it's difficult.

[Ian King]

Then her lawyer wanted to wait.

[Cedric Nash]

Her lawyer wanted to write my prenup. After that, she's like, oh, no, let me rewrite it. I was like, no, you can't write a prenup to protect my. My assets.

[Rashad Bilal]

Right.

[Cedric Nash]

Yeah, I'm not gonna go for that. So it's very complicated, and a lot of people struggle with that notion. But look at it this way. I don't know if you. I mean, I know you guys have one son or kid, and I know, Troy, you have two, three kids. I was thinking, like, I can't get a divorce. You have two kids. Okay, I'm sorry. Listen, man.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, we married, man. I'm just trying to stay in this lane.

[Cedric Nash]

Right, right.

[Troy Millings]

Just to.

[Cedric Nash]

But the whole point is, like, if I got A divorce from my second wife. And I. Because I had a will, too, because if I died, she was. I was going to give her 25% of my assets. The other 75% was going to my sons. But if I died and my assets went to her without a prenup, then my sons could have had a situation where she wouldn't have paid for their college.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Cedric Nash]

My sons could have been in a situation where they've got nothing. So my rationale for a prenup was, you know, my sons are everything to me. There's no way in the world I'm gonna work this hard and not like my dad say, have them start from my shoulders.

[Ian King]

Yep.

[Cedric Nash]

Not from the ground. So I needed to make sure that they were taken care of. And that was the crux of the. Of the prenup. What was interesting is there's three sides of her prenup. There's my. Make sure my hands on the camera. There's my assets, her assets, and ours. And so how it goes is my assets could continue to grow, right. And I would still own them as long as they were. They were. They were titled to me. And then her assets would do the same thing. Right. She had a condo that would continue to grow, but if we titled assets together, that's what we would split, and that's how it was written. So we never really had any assets together. So therefore, when we got a divorce, I kept my assets, she kept hers, and I entered the concession part of my. Of my. Of my prenup. But it's an interesting thing, and it really sometimes damages relationships because people start looking at you like, do you trust me?

[Troy Millings]

Or.

[Cedric Nash]

Or whatever. We end up divorced. We end up good friends. She stayed in my company for a lot of years. She's now a tech lawyer for major government contracting businesses. Because she worked in my business, and I raised her daughter like my daughter. So it's like, you know, it's all good, but that's. That's. That's the challenge.

[Troy Millings]

That's a powerful conversation. Even more powerful testimony. You know, I didn't realize it, but I think me and Shoddy having a conversation, and he was like, how many people do you know, have prenups? And I'm like, I don't know any. Now that I think about it, I really know any. So, like, I mean, just not having an education around it can cost you. But you talked about assets, and I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the ones that you've accumulated in real estate. You talked about the Jersey City. We were actually in Jersey City last night at a wedding. Congratulations to Cheryl and Alex. And yeah, you can see like the developments are happening there. How do you go about choosing where you're going to create a new asset class? Which state? Commercial, residential. How do you go about it?

[Cedric Nash]

Yeah, you know, there's two ways I look at it. First of all, I look at, I look at a property's capitalization rate and capitalization rate. A lot of people buy multifamily and they don't really do the numbers and they don't do the analysis. So I look at capitalization rate is the net operating. The annual net operating income over its sales price. And annual net operating income is essentially the rents minus the operating expenses equals the net operating income. So you multiply that times 12 and you divide it by the sales price. And typically cap rates for properties vary, but they really range around anywhere from the ideal number is to kind of get it around 6 to 8%. That's what people try to buy them at. But when real estate is real expensive, you know, properties are trading at a cap rate about 4% or even 3%. Right. When it's really highly sought after and you got to make it up with rental income over time. So when I was in Jersey City, so that was number one. The other two is the other. The second thing is, is I look at locations. I look at four things by locations I look at closest to water is my number one. So if you look at most of my properties, like even my backyard right now is on the water. My condo in, in Miami's on the beach. My properties in Jersey City was really close to the water. Like I was on the water on one property. But then the multifamily I bought was only like a train right away, which is the second train right away, which is the second thing I look for. And that is transportation. Am I close to a major hub through transportation? So am I like either close to New York City or am I close to a train that will get me to New York City pretty easily? And the third thing I look for is am I in a city that has restaurants and has a high walkability factor because people tend to want to be in those areas. And I say that if you pick a property based on those three or four things, also a city that has great job growth. Jersey City had incredible job growth since 9 11. So if you focus on those four things, it's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when the property is Going to go up. Look at Newark. Right, right. And so if you look at a city, you just kind of keep going further out the ecosystem, you follow the transportation. And when I bought it, Jersey City was just putting their light rail train in. So I went and bought properties along the light rail that people can walk three or four blocks to the light rail. And those properties have gone up tremendously as a result. So those are the four things that you look at. But after you find the property, you got to do the analysis of the numbers to basically see if the property makes sense. It's so important that you know the numbers that you just don't buy it because, you know, because the rent minus the mortgage payment seems right. There's a whole lot of factors that you need to look into, including vacancy factor, including the operating expense. And now that the property taxes are huge, because when you buy it, your property taxes, especially in Florida, are going to go up. You know, property taxes In Florida about 2%, the price of the property, because we have no income taxes in Florida. So you have to really look at all the numbers. And that's what I teach. And that's why I like, like for people to, to know.

[Ian King]

Did you know Jersey City and Newark were going to develop into what they are now 20 years later? And if so, like, what resources, what conversations, what meetings were you having with government to know what the development was going to be? So you can know what the multiple is going to be in 10 to 20 years?

[Cedric Nash]

That's a great question. And what. First of all, I was living there. So when I started my consulting company, my first client was Panasonic in Secaucus, New Jersey. So we were putting an SAP there, and I was managing a project there, and I had a consultant that worked at Citibank for me, and I had to bring her a check. I went to go bring her check, and she was living in Jersey City. And in that section of Jersey City, looking at the World Trade center, there was nothing there but this one building right in the corner, beautiful building called Portside. And in fact, the owner went bankrupt, right, because he was way ahead of his time. So I paid her that money. But since Panasonic was paying my expenses to the tune of 12,000amonth, I was like, I don't want to stay in hotels no more. I'm going to go get an apartment. And I went down there and got an apartment right where she was. So I was there from like 2000 to around 2004. And I just saw all the building going. It was Crazy, right? And then I was like, I need to buy something over here. So I started looking at, you know, row houses, multi families, and the numbers were astounding. It's like anything you bought made money. There was positive cash flow. And that's what I saw. And I was looking to buy in California. This is around the time I finished reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I was looking to buy in California, but you couldn't find multiple units that cash flowed. You know, it was like you had to do a 1031 exchange to lower the payments in order to get a positive cash flow. But in Jersey, every property you found at that time, you made positive cash flow. I wish I would have bought more. So when I sold my condo at the time, I got a divorce to move to D.C. i started buying up buildings there. That's what I saw. But then also, Ian, to your point, there's a city map. If you go to different places you want to invest in, the city will have a map of their development plan of different areas. And there was a Morris Canal development plan that I didn't. Was even aware of, but I just happened to stumble upon it at the city and saw that there was real plans for big development there, and I knew that it was going to happen. So like you said, city officials, you just go to the city planning office and find out if there's a city plan for the area that you're interested in.

[Ian King]

That's a great gym.

[Rashad Bilal]

Well, Cedric, my brother, appreciate you coming on. I know you're gonna be actually doing a panel and a presentation at Invest Fest, so, yes, definitely suggest everybody go check out the panel, the presentation, and just network with Cedric in general. No, absolutely personable brother. Good brother. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing the wisdom and I'm definitely looking forward to, to seeing you at Invest Festival.

[Cedric Nash]

Likewise. Looking forward to be there. Thanks for having me.

[Ian King]

Thank you, my brother.

[Troy Millings]

We'll see you in a few days, man.

[Cedric Nash]

Okay, take care.

[Troy Millings]

All right.

[Rashad Bilal]

All right, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it.

[Ian King]

Conversation.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, man, your brother. Great dude.

[Ian King]

Yeah, Good dude.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian King]

One of my favorite people.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, we made it through that whole thing without shouting out our brother Lou Tucker, man. Shout out to Lou.

[Rashad Bilal]

You know, I had to ask about that prenup situation.

[Ian King]

That's a great. And not many people have been through that to have the discussion.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, it's powerful, bro. I. I mean, you don't know. You don't know.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's a financial conversation.

[Troy Millings]

It is. It's a responsible conversation. It's a mature conversation.

[Ian King]

And it's a needed one because some of you out there are the Nvidia plan for some of them that you dating.

[Troy Millings]

The Nvidia plan.

[Ian King]

I might got hired. He didn't sign a prenup. That group chat piece lit in four years. In four days it's over to a rocket.

[Rashad Bilal]

And Cedric, you know, he's one of these people. He's. He's an extremely wealthy person. But a lot of people don't recover from it. So he was able to recover from his first divorce. But that's, you know, that's something that sometimes you can't even recover from.

[Troy Millings]

So yeah, recover from it. And sought love again.

[Rashad Bilal]

But learned his lesson and got the prenup.

[Ian King]

Smart move. Took care of the kids.

[Rashad Bilal]

Can't fool me twice. The babies me twice.

[Troy Millings]

I like that that I'm actually gonna take that from him. Man. We always talk about we don't want our kids to start from the dirt but like nah, they need to start from our shoulders, not from the ground.

[Ian King]

That's it.

[Troy Millings]

That's it.

[Rashad Bilal]

I'm not gonna give me twice or.

[Ian King]

Me the first time.

[Troy Millings]

To pick the kitties up, put a chat.

[Rashad Bilal]

How y' all feel about you choose how y' all feel about that. Y' all going. Y' all signing the prenup.

[Ian King]

What you.

[Troy Millings]

It's your choice. It's a choice. Died to a rocket. Put in chat out of space. I know you wish he could.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh man. Okay. Okay. First and foremost, shout out to the good folks at Block. They have been very just warm and welcoming to us. They're doing an activation. We, we've shot content with them. It's, it's. They're. They're fully brought into to invest fest as a company. They're like fully on board. So we greatly appreciate it. Now one thing about business is that you're always going to have some level of monkey wrench that come into the. To the situation. But how you pivot is how you actually absolutely what you'll be known for in the grand scheme of things. Right. So unfortunately Jack Dorsey is on another continent and his travel schedule, he got hit with some last minute things and he won't be actually physically able to be in Atlanta. But we are going to have the conversation with Jack Dorsey. We're going to do it live and we're going to teleport it. So he's going to do it. It's gonna be virtual. It's gonna be a virtual conversation live. And he'll be on, he'll be on the screen. It'll be in real time. So you know, that energy will be there. And they, you know, they wanted to kind of see how they can add some level of extra added incentive for the crowd being that he's not gonna be able to physically be there. So what we're going to do is that they. We're actually going to accept five questions from anybody that's coming to Invest Fest.

[Ian King]

That's incredible.

[Rashad Bilal]

Wants to ask Jack Dorsey a question. So if you email inquiries with an S at the end, [e-mail] from now until Friday. If you're going to Invest Fest, email a question. We're going to pick five questions and we're going to ask the questions to him live when we're interviewing them. So actually Elon Musk did something similar to this as far as the live. And I think it was in Saudi Arabia. They had a big investment conference and he wasn't actually able physically to be there. But you know, it's pretty common actually, especially in the tech world where sometimes, you know, you get hit with last minute things. So Jack Dorsey won't physically be in Atlanta, but the conversation will be live. It will be on the, on the main stage, big screen and we will be taking questions from the audience. Five questions pre submitted to inquiries@earn your legion.com and we will ask him those questions during our conversation. And Block will be in the building and Booth will be in the building and the whole team will be in the building. But you know, sometimes you got to pivot. But first and foremost, we're grateful that he even has enough time to have the conversation. He's one of the richest people in human history so to, you know, carve out that time and his schedule to do it live. And he said he definitely wanted to do it live, but it just had that, that feel to it. I think it's going to be a magical moment.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. And that means that you need to be in your seat. Right. Because when Tamika, your question gets read, I'm gonna call your name and I want you to be in your seat so you can get the credit for your question. And they were so gracious, like you said. I mean, the team has been absolutely incredible. When you talk about real partnership, this is what we have now forged with Block. And they got some dope. Incentives, right? They got some incentive. We can't announce the incentive, but we got some dope. Make sure you are in your seat for that comment. I mean, you should be there anyways. Market Monday's live is Jack Dorsey, we're talking about crypto, we're talking about billionaires. Be in your seat. There's some initiatives and some announcements that we're going to have live on stage. It's going to be dope. So make sure you're in your seat. I want to say your name out loud. I want you to get credit for your question.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, yeah, it's a big, it's a big thing that we're going to announce. That they're going to announce. Jack is going to announce.

[Troy Millings]

Exactly.

[Rashad Bilal]

Jack is going to announce something at Invest Festival at the end of the conversation Saturday.

[Ian King]

Be there please.

[Troy Millings]

Yes, yes.

[Ian King]

And one of the greatest tech entrepreneurs, if you look at what he just built in Twitter, block new initiative, mass adoption of bitcoin, he's one of the, hands down one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the last hundred years. So you do not want to miss the conversation.

[Troy Millings]

The new innovation that they've created.

[Ian King]

Insane.

[Troy Millings]

I've never seen anything like it.

[Ian King]

Ever insane.

[Troy Millings]

Ever, ever, ever.

[Ian King]

Like, he's often an innovator right in the tech space.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. Okay, Warren Buffett. So what's the deal with Warren Buffett and UnitedHealth?

[Ian King]

Last week I said that I think UnitedHealthcare is uninvestable and Buffett bought into it. Well, hit the team at Berkshire. Shout to everyone at Berkshire, love you dearly. Bought into it. And then Twitter and my text for a Blaze. I want to give context. I still feel the same way on a long term basis until they have a new CEO and some of the scandal goes away. But this isn't even 1% of the allocation for Berkshire. So it would be the equivalent if hypothetically, back in the day you saw Jordan with a Reebok shirt on because he was working out. It's like that doesn't mean he's now endorsing Reebok. I think sometimes when we look at the 13F, the thing that we're missing is the allocation. I think the price disparity though of UnitedHealthcare was so wide that a lot of people end up jumping into it because it is at a multi year low. But my question is, has the fundamentals of the business changed? And if we want to go into blackout for a little second, what is being hidden through this trial and the murder of the CEO that is not really being exposed about the strength and weakness of the business? Is it still one of the biggest companies in the world? For sure. Is it a quality company? No. Not what it used to be. And my, my main question for any investment is if your life and your child's life was on the line and this investment had to pan out, would you put all of your money into it? For me and for most of you, United Health Care is a no. So don't over hype it and act as if United Healthcare replace Apple as the prime investment and his portfolio when it's not.

[Troy Millings]

I think he wasn't the only one. Michael Burry bought some millions of shares as well. But if you, if you study Buffett, this is just kind of like what he does. You're gonna find legacy companies deep discounted, discounted prices.

[Ian King]

Yep.

[Troy Millings]

And hey, what. I mean, the downside has been clicked in. We're talking about something that was at a high of 6:30 and that was earlier this year. Yeah, right. It got down to 270. I mean 234. Right now we're trading at around 3:13, 3:14. Deep discount legacy company. Like you said, if a move like a CEO changing or the way that policy is written or the way that insurance is handled, that changes. He's not thinking of 2025 when he does this. He's thinking of 2035, 2045. Right. I got it at a deep discount. That was corrected. I have a clear understanding of the healthcare industry in the space. Yeah, I'm getting this out. I mean, it's a typical move. So we'll see how it pans out. Like, but he's not thinking this year we're gonna have a return on it long term for sure.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay, let's talk about this. Let's talk about China. So China orders tech firms to suspend Nvidia chip purchases over security concerns. So Chinese regulators have reportedly told major tech companies, including Binance and Alibaba and Tencent to stop buying Nvidia's H20AI chips due to security concerns. The order applies to projects involving government and national security. This comes after the US allowed limited exports of downgraded AI chips to China, including Nvidia's H20, which has designed to meet an earlier export rule. In April, the US Banned exports of certain chips due to national security concerns, leading to a reported $5.5 billion loss for Nvidia. The ban was lifted in July after license approvals were granted, but Chinese officials remain cautious. What are your thoughts?

[Troy Millings]

It's understandable, right. When we talking about why they were able to now sell in China. It was one of these things that we have to track where it's going. Right. They, they might have found the culprit of how those Hoppers got into China. But you can understand if you have monitoring devices on semiconductors that are going to another country that are using it.

[Ian King]

Being installed in the government.

[Troy Millings]

Installed in the government. I mean, this, I mean that raises a red flag for me. Obviously it raises a red flag for them, but this is completely understandable. But it goes to the fact, and we've been saying it all year and even when we said it in January, it tells you, yes, China, huge, huge force when it comes to the advancement of semis, when we thought deep sea, they were close. Right. They were right there. It still tells you that the company that they need, if they want to perform at the highest level. Now you could perform. Right? But it just won't be at the highest level. In fact, if you're using Hopper, you're already not at the highest level.

[Ian King]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

So it's understandable. It makes a lot of sense. I don't. They'll figure this out.

[Ian King]

Like Troy said, totally understandable. But going back to the question, if I had to put money into a company for the rest of the year, no company is this valuable on both continents. Amd, as good as they may be. I had a ryzen chip in 2018 in my desktop. It's nothing like what Nvidia has. Like, I think people don't understand Nvidia chips are a class above the competition. Is anyone who knows anything about tech. It's no comparison. It's PS5 versus PS2. So should China protect their national security efforts? Yes, yes. But this just tells you how valuable this company and these chips are. And if intel wouldn't have got lazy for 19 years, they would be here.

[Troy Millings]

We could talk about the intel situation.

[Ian King]

Let's talk about it.

[Troy Millings]

That's a very unique situation, but it begs the question of. Jensen's obviously been the CEO of Nvidia since 1986, I believe. If he waits three years, do you think that does he design a chip specifically for China or does he just say, you know, let me just wait for three years and. And I'll adhere to some of the regulations now, but in three years we're going to be here still and they're still going to be in the lead and it's just back to business as usual.

[Ian King]

If we are in an AI war, an AI will make the foundation embed for Quantum. Would him making a chip exclusively for China be an act of technological treason?

[Troy Millings]

Not specifically for China, but maybe a chip that can be sold to China and other countries.

[Ian King]

The other countries part is where.

[Troy Millings]

Right.

[Ian King]

I think what's best in, in national interest. They're going to have to find a way to subsidize Nvidia to not have an incentive to sell to China.

[Troy Millings]

Gonna be tough. You need it. AMD needs it for sure. All right. We talked about it last week about from GPU standpoint, CPU standpoint. That rising chip, the new one. It kind of needs that, that Chinese market, they, they have to figure out a common ground here whether it's. And I know that the license is under review and supposedly becoming before the end of this month. So we'll see. And that would be one of those Catalyst events that you talked about and alluded to earlier. Catalyst events like that. What's happening inside of licensing of who can sell and what they can sell to China. That would be one of those things that if it does happen, we're gonna, we're gonna see a bull run again.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

As far as trading, question from the audience. Once trading becomes consistently profitable, how do you structure it like a business? What percentage of profits do you typically allocate to personal spending, taxes, insurance, reinvestment, etc?

[Ian King]

That's a great question. I. Everyone always hates my allocation, but I can only tell you what I've done. The most important thing is once you start making, especially the futures market because it's so volatile and edge can decay so fast, you have to put half of your trading profits into long term companies. Your best return is going to be taking the short term gains and then applying it to long term assets. So that makes money for you while you're asleep. That's the name of the game. Personal spending. I have very extreme thoughts on how much money you should spend in a year and over a decade and what should be. You don't have to do that, but I do think as, as Cedric just highlighted, you have to live frugal. I know everyone wants to go and show off online right away, but I think in this era, I think this is like the most ball and era ever that has the least amount of assets. I see people with cars and club everywhere and it's like the debt adding up like crazy. So keep the spending low, build infrastructure and team around you to be sustainable. But when I see other people try and pursue it another way from trading, they usually blow up their accounts and then have all the overhead of 30 and a $50,000 a month lifestyle. And guess what? When you have that much overhead, it's really hard to trade consistently. Well, I'll talk about it on Sunday and I've talked about it last year. If sometimes in the futures market, you're going to have to sit six trading sessions or 12 trading sessions before you get a great move. A lot of times losses are happening because you have so much debt and you're like, damn, I got to pay this bill for 18, 000 on the 22nd. The market doesn't give a about that.

[Troy Millings]

I'm gonna challenge you maybe as a blackout topic, the most boring ever with the least amount of assets. Because we run into a lot of athletes, we run a lot of entertainers that we watch growing up and they're like, yo, I wish I would have known the information that y' all provide. I would have done a lot. But I would have had some, some better choices with my money. I would have probably had brokerage account. I would.

[Ian King]

And that's another thing. We can talk about the ecosystem that's made in sports that make them go broke or steal the money from them.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I think this generation is changing. Even when you talk about kids in nil topic that will be covered at investors and how they're moving around with money and how they're looking at professional sports as, hey, maybe I'll go, maybe I don't.

[Ian King]

Oh, I'm just talking about the general market. Yeah, I'm just talking about the general market.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I think you said, and even inside of the question from a business standpoint, and one of those things is like, and I've learned this, and I know shoddy's done it as well, is like when you trade as an individual, that's one thing. Right. But if you start allocating enough money and you start to see gains at a different level now you're going to create an llc, Right. Or you're going to trade inside of that llc. Right. To protect yourself. We're talking about assets. And I'm glad Cedric just highlighted that as well. From a tax standpoint, your gains aren't realized until you sold.

[Ian King]

Yep.

[Troy Millings]

Right. And so that's one of those things. A lot of people trade futures. A lot of people trade options. Those contracts will expire within the year, which is why I always tell people, hey, we're going long term leaps. We're going long term leaps. I want you to have as much of your money as possible. Right. So there's a difference between short term capital gains and the difference between long term capital gains. If we do our contracts over a year and a day, we already are. In the long term capital gains, the percentage decreases. So you're trying to keep as much money as possible for yourself. Now, when it comes to how much you want to allocate, I would tell you, right. If you want to, right. You should, number one, try to figure out where your exit strategy is. If you put in a $10,000 is your exit strategy when you make a.

[Ian King]

Hundred percent, you have to know before.

[Troy Millings]

You got to know because if not, you're going to be treating it like a checking account, it's going to become a savings account and then it's going to be in the red and you're gonna be like, what happened to it? Right. Like it's there for a reason. And so one of the things we always talk about is like, hey, if it's 100, I'm getting my initial investment back but I'm not taking it out, right. Like I'm going to reinvest that into long term things. In fact, we're going to do in our next class how we're going to turn short term options trading, which just means two, two years, right? Because obviously we always talk about long term and trade that into something that's long term, like having shares. And so we're going to actually exercise some contracts on the next call so people can see how you can turn a contract that's appreciated to a certain point into a long term share and even turn it into something that you can leave for your kids. So have a plan, have a plan, have a plan.

[Ian King]

And as a business, when you're trading on the future side, you can't hold for a year. You can only swing for 30 some days max. This is why it's important to only take a certain amount of trades so you're not getting killed on the tax side. Even on the future splits on the taxes are better than if you just trade stocks. I know some people are like, Well I took 35 trades in a month. And I'm like, you're not even factoring all the back end costs. Just around trip fees are going to kill you if you don't have a great relationship with the brokers. But when you, when it's CPA time, you're going to get slaughtered. And let's be real, even if you're trading and as much as I love futures, you're still exchanging time for money. I don't, you don't have to believe. Look at Buffett, Larry Ellison, Mansa, Musa King, everybody invest. Everyone is holding Genie Buss and heard that 40 years there. No one who's really wealthy, I'm talking 100 million and up are thinking five years, they're thinking 20 to 50 at least.

[Rashad Bilal]

But we have our guest here, so let's bring our guest. Hey.

[Troy Millings]

One of our favorite people in the entire world is here with us.

[Rashad Bilal]

How you doing?

[Tabitha Brown]

How y' all doing? Good to see.

[Ian King]

Good. How are you?

[Rashad Bilal]

Good, good, good.

[Tabitha Brown]

I was getting my little workout on, and I looked at the clock. I said, oh, I got stuff to go do. And I got.

[Rashad Bilal]

We won't keep you long. We know, we know it's a busy person, but, you know, coming back to Invest Fest this weekend, first and foremost, thank you for that. I know a lot of people are excited. That's. That's going to be a, you know, highly anticipated conversation. So I'm personally looking forward to it. And anytime you come, it's always great energy. You know, the vendors always love to see you, and everybody just gets excited whenever you're there. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Tabitha Brown]

Thank you. Absolutely.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay, so we can jump right into it. Just, you know, I had a couple of questions. Just getting up for Invest Fest, you know, you're interesting because we've actually seen your rise in real time, right. And we've seen every aspect of it. So as you're navigating this whole social media influencer mogul, working with brands, what have you learned over the last two years? I guess, because that's when, like, I think you really, really became like a household name. Like, once you became a household name, what are some of the lessons that you learned after that point?

[Tabitha Brown]

Oh, honey, where do we begin? I think the. The biggest lesson is that while you grow, right, People change. You know, there's diff. There's a difference in growth and change, right? So as I'm growing, there is a shift in me, which is. Is changing me. But then there's other people who just change without growth, if that makes sense. And it's. It's very disheartening on. On part of the successful journey. I always tell people there's a very dark side of success that people don't talk about. You lose a lot of people, people start to dehumanize you. They stop seeing you as just a person, and they see you as an opportunity. And that's probably been the. The biggest lesson. I'm still navigating that. It's. It's pretty tough because I love people very hard. And then also, I think on a business level is learning to pivot, right? When things change, when business changes, when partnerships change, when, you know, the people in partnership that you in partnership with change, like all the things. But learning to pivot, I think is Also been a very valuable lesson that I've learned.

[Troy Millings]

I will say this. There are not many people in this world that I've encountered that when you are in their presence, they light up a room or light up a space. You are definitely one of them. I haven't eaten chicken in two years since we met. I just wonder, even with that dark side, no one is there. How do you maintain that this joyous, infectious.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Spirit around you at all times? I mean, when people see you, they are enamored because they can't believe that it's the same energy of the person that they've been watching for so many days. How. How do you stay so consistent with that?

[Tabitha Brown]

I think it's. It's a true download. Right. I believe that God just gave me pure joy. I've always been a joyful spirit. That's just kind of something that you'll hear my daddy and my uncles and my husband, who I've been with for 27 years, they'll say, like, that girl is just a joyful spirit. But I also have experienced my own, like, dark season, and it's just not fun. So I'm very intentional with joy. Every day that I wake up, baby, I'm so happy to be alive. I'd be like, oh, I made the wake up list. Lord, I get another chance, you know? So I think it's just intentional. And when. If I don't feel, like, joyous, like, if I don't feel happy, I'm not going, like, put myself in an environment to bring other people down, you understand? Like, I. I enjoy making people feel well, and I enjoy feeling well. And I won't feel good if I'm not making others feel good in. In my presence. So then I may not show up for something if I know I can't show up, if that makes sense. So. But not saying that all days are great. You know, I show up sometimes and I tell people, like, honey, it's been a tough day, but joy is, like, not given from the world. You know, the world didn't give it in. The world can't take it away. And so I just, you know, I'm intentional with it. You know, that's. That's just my truth. Yeah.

[Ian King]

For the men and women who aspire inspired by you. And to Troy's point, like, everywhere you go, you just light up the room. Can you deconstruct to how you got to become this iconic person and built this amazing brand? Like, early on social media, were you planning for it to have this impact and if not, or if so, what are some key things you think everyone that's an entrepreneur should do the next two or three years to get to a position where you are now?

[Tabitha Brown]

It's so funny. We talked about this when I was on the show. I absolutely had no plan of any of this happening the way it has happened. I was. You know, I'm. I'm an actress. Like, that is why I moved to Los Angeles. This is. That is the dream I always had as a child was to perform this whole thing. Is it literally. And I cannot say this any clearer, it is from obedience. Like, I literally surrendered. I. I used to be a different tab, right? I used to conform. I used to shape shift. I used to live to please others, and I literally just stopped doing that. And I just tried to be who God created me to be. And with that, doors started to open out of being authentic, because I also used to not be authentic. I used to try to, like, fit in and be, okay, let me be who I think people want me to be or what might help me make it. But people can read that a mile away, right? And so after, like, taking those layers off, I just started to just be Tab and let that be enough. And that's what started to change my life. Now, I can't say when I started to do content, because it was very new for me, and things started to happen. I was like, well, I don't want it to just go away. So as things started to develop and I. Opportunities started to come, I did say, okay, well, I know my training as an actor. I can also use this as an opportunity to tell these businesses, like, I'm trained. I can do commercials for y'.

[Cedric Nash]

All.

[Tabitha Brown]

I can do this for y'.

[Troy Millings]

All.

[Tabitha Brown]

But the business aspect that I didn't realize I would fall in love with business. Like, I had no. I really had no vision for business the way that I do now. So I really just think that God just downloaded that into me and was like, no, this is the plan I had for you, and I'm gonna give you everything that you need. But one thing that I made sure of is to always keep things in alignment with who I am, right? I never just decided to die. Like, you ain't never gonna see Tab name on a beer. I don't drink beer, so why would I do something that ain't in alignment for me? You know what I mean? So I. I just did things that made sense. So what I can tell people, I'm sorry, if y' all hear my dog barking, somebody ringing My bell, if you're going to do something, if you're trying to elevate, if you're trying to scale, if you're trying to do, you know, create a company or product or business, make sure it's in alignment with you, make sure you're telling your truth, make sure you do it your way. You can be inspired by other people, but never try to duplicate what someone else has done. Yeah, that's, that's, that's what I would say to them.

[Rashad Bilal]

I gotta ask you this question because, you know, it's market Monday, so we talk about companies and valuations and stock and stuff like that. And we had Dr. Jamal Bryant on, so obviously Target, that's, that's a big thing, right? And you, you're somebody that has a, a working relationship with Target. So from a business perspective, I'll be interested to hear. I know you spoke about it a few times before, but what are your thoughts on everything that's surrounding this whole Target boycott situation?

[Tabitha Brown]

I think that the boycott, I understand it, right. And the, the thing about the boycott, that was a little disheartening for not just myself but all the other black owned businesses that were in Target. None of us were contacted, right? None of us were notified that, hey, this is what the plan is. What do you need? What, what, how can we be a resource? Because this is what you're going to have to endure, right? And so while I'm with it, right. I understand it, it's just like, dang, we can't be together even on that. So that was, that was the big thing for me. Because also while I am a business owner in Target, with Donna's recipe, my hair care company, all of those products, that's a partnership, that's a licensing deal. So all the food and the kitchen supplies, all that things, that's a completely different situation. And most people thought, oh, she could just take those products and do D2C. And I'm like, y' all don't understand business. Yeah, licensing deal, that's a partnership. Like, I even saw, you know, somebody y' all had sent me when Jamal Bryant was on and I was like, he still doesn't get it. Like, because he was like, she could just ship direct to customer. I'm like, you think I own five businesses and don't know what D2C is? Like, I've been shipping, you know, direct to consumer, but that's a partnership, right? And under contract, like, I can't just end that contract, right? But the difference between me and the majority of Those other people is they were not in partnership. They were only small businesses who were on shelves. And we all know if you've ever been in retail, have a brand, it takes a long time to get on those shelves and a lot of money and just take your products out of the store. And they have suffered. Some of them have now lost that space because the numbers don't lie. Right? And so in the very beginning, my thought was like, wait, is this a setup? You know, before, before I even knew, like the whole, you know, boycott thing. Because I found out the same day as everybody else, I found out the DEI rollback was happening. I found out the workout was happening. Like we all found out at the same time. And I was like, dang, is this a, is this like a setup to remove all black businesses from the shelves? Because if a boycott happens, it's our people and we're the ones who buy those products. And the numbers is what they go by. When those numbers come in low, we gonna have to go, right? So when I first did my video back in January when it happened, that's what I was trying to explain the, like, the business behind it. But most people don't understand business and they just thought I was like, oh no, y' all go shop at Target. I'm like, I never said that. I said this is what's going to happen, which is what happened. I still think it's a, it's necessary. I still think that Target was very wrong and they got a lot of work to do to, to figure out how to move forward. But there's still some businesses that are there that are struggling, but they are still on the shelf, including Donna's recipe. Like she's. I'm one of those businesses. But many of them are still very much so struggling, trying to get those sales without promoting, without trying to go against the boycott or anything like that. But it's still very tough for the black owned businesses.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I'm glad you touched on that. And you talked about the power of, of the pivot. And obviously you have products in there, but one of the things that you're great at is you have multiple streams and you have multiple avenues. So I want to lead by saying congratulations. You alluded to being an actress and recently, you know, you announced that you're going to be starring an executive producing a film. Yeah, about that full circle moment, right? The, the girl who, who travels to California, try to figure things out, figures it out in content, and now it's going back to where you really started was I'M acting and now I'm executive producer and talk about that full circle moment.

[Tabitha Brown]

Yeah, I am. You know, I, I love to perform, I love acting. Being able to like do a Christmas film is like one of the things I love doing, like holiday movies and things like that. So being able to do unexpected Christmas. Trell Woodbury, who's one of the producers on the project, is a good friend of mine. We've known each other for over 20 plus plus years and when they reached out to me with the script, I was just like, oh, this is good. Like they wanted me to be in it, but then they were like, what, what about, you know, being an executive producer? I was like, you know what, I don't mind if I do, you know, but it was just a full circle moment. I've done a lot of, you know, not a lot, but a lot of smaller roles. Every year I'll do a little bit of acting, but not able to like really do it because I didn't have time. But sometimes the blessing in having to pivot and one, one thing starts to go away. It's like God was like, this is all part of the plan. Let me, let me clear your schedule here so you can do more things like this. So I'm super excited for it to also have distribution and go to theaters November 7th. And amazing. Bring some holiday cheer into all the, the homes across the the US this holiday season.

[Ian King]

Touching on pivoting, going back to the partnership. Really quick for those that aspire to have major partnership with Fortune 500 companies. Knowing what you know now, what contingency plan would you put in place in case something goes awry? And to your point, I think they are using the boycotting sales tactics as a way to not put us back in shelves. Maybe for the next given who's in office. What contingency plans would you put in place if you do have a major partnership with the Fortune 500 company? If you're a black owned company?

[Tabitha Brown]

I think I would. I mean we've all learned from this. So I think with, even with my contract, right. When it comes to like partnership and licensing deals, there should be a, like a dual respect clause, right? So that means if you do something that can affect our business, I can.

[Ian King]

Exit the morality clause.

[Tabitha Brown]

A morality clause. Exactly. And vice versa. If I do something right, y' all can let me go. But there has to be, it has to be dual on both sides.

[Ian King]

That's smart.

[Rashad Bilal]

Well tapped. I know you gotta go. Thank you again. I look forward to seeing you at Invest Festival See y' all soon.

[Tabitha Brown]

Thank you so much.

[Rashad Bilal]

Keep up the great. Keep up the great work. Thank you.

[Tabitha Brown]

Thank you. God bless you. All right.

[Troy Millings]

Bye.

[Tabitha Brown]

Bye.

[Troy Millings]

Talk about a legend.

[Ian King]

Yeah. For real. You guys have met her more than I have, but every time I've seen her, that joy is beaming.

[Troy Millings]

Good people. We. We did the interview in 23, but we've run into a few times since then, and it's been the same energy every time.

[Ian King]

She's really special and it's genuine.

[Troy Millings]

Absolutely.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

She'll be at the marketplace. You know, she did that last time. People was really excited to see her. But yeah, invest fest. You know, it's interesting because she's on a panel with Fawn Weaver, and if you've been following what's happened with Uncle Nearest, that's an interesting story. So very interested to see what she has to say about that. For Weaver, Very timely conversation. And then, of course, Tabitha, you know, everything she got going on. But then also, the target situation is still brewing, so, you know, it's a lot of timely.

[Troy Millings]

That's a hell of a combo conversation.

[Cedric Nash]

Wow.

[Ian King]

And if we can touch on it, is that done by accident or is it intentional?

[Cedric Nash]

What.

[Ian King]

The. The use of debt as an instrument to strip, potentially strip your company away from you. Well, I have to have it today, but the other financial. Okay, so you have confessions of economic hitman for countries. This is done in venture and angel as well, though.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. You think about them. I mean, she brought up a good point about the amount of capital that it takes for a company to even be inside these box. Big box stores. Costly to have that your company now be in the part of a boycott, unbeknownst to you. Yeah, it's tough. How do you. How do you recover?

[Ian King]

You navigate.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Cedric Nash]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

And that's a. That's a. That's a hell of a lineup on Saturday. It's like you got. I think it's the. I think it's AI presentation followed by Secrets of Wealth with Melanin Money, followed by the Africa panel with Shaka bars Alvin and Kwame, followed by the foreign Weaver and Tabitha Brown conversation. Also the. The president of Ghana, ex president of Ghana's daughters on that panel, followed by Market Mondays Live with Jack Dorsey Lunch, followed by Issa Ray one on one fireside chat. It's actually changed a little bit. Issa Ray's gonna have a one on one fireside chat with Selena Hill, followed by Charlemagne having a one on one fireside chat with Steve Harvey, followed by iconic.

[Ian King]

Yo.

[Rashad Bilal]

Jamal Bryant.

[Troy Millings]

Okay. I thought it was Native Land.

[Rashad Bilal]

The Native Land podcast followed by Dean Forbes and Ross Mack icon.

[Ian King]

Shout out to my guy Ross. And that's just all of these people that have amazing information but they're amazing orators too. Like if you're a business person or entrepreneur, there are things to take from all of them on both spheres. Like that the Uncle Nearest conversation and what Tapas went through in Target. That will be a Harvard case study.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I, I will be sitting in right in front listening to that conversation. If you've never seen Form Weaver speak, if you've never encountered her presence, you are in for an absolute treat. You talking about orator and somebody that is just brilliant and super knowledgeable. It don't. That's the highest level, bro.

[Ian King]

And the other part of the dark side of success is when you get to the pinnacle, there may be forces to knock you off the top of Everest to put you right back down. That's the conversation they're having in real time and in this climate and, and.

[Troy Millings]

We'Ve been to Nashville and we've been to Uncle Nearest and we, we actually saw what they're building there. I, I'm, I'm excited for that conversation.

[Ian King]

And I want to say this humbling respectfully for everyone who commented, well maybe we should build in private and you can't build a brand in a silo. You can't build a consumer facing brand just being absolutely quiet. Especially if you take on capital, there are certain obligations you have to meet. So that's not the. If no one even heard of the company, these sales were there, this tactic could still be deployed. So let's give all the support in the world to her. I just don't like that narrative. Well if she wasn't front facing I'm like that's not true. There are companies that acquired that are going through 80 drawdowns in target right now that are not as popular as tablets's brands. They're quiet. They're going through the same restrictive strategies and financial engineering at one time.

[Troy Millings]

That's a fact.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, well it's going to be interesting conversation for sure. I get to take it to the best Nvidia for people that might have missed the boat. What's the new entry point?

[Ian King]

I'm gonna keep asking how y' all keep missing the oh my God. If I go for this week, maybe 170,838. It's a mandatory five year hold on that price point, but 178.38 maybe in the next month or so if it gets down to 165.81. That is a good price to start a position into it. But my question is how do you keep missing.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian King]

Such an iconic company.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. Again, the, the company of this generation for sure. Morgan Stanley just raised its price target on Nvidia to 206. Kept it overweight. So it was at 200. Now it has it as 206 by year end. I mean. Yeah. I don't know. This is not something you're. If you're missing it, you're intentionally doing it.

[Ian King]

You're intentionally missing it.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian King]

Yeah. And I'll talk to a couple analysts too. The sentiment that I have about a certain executive is the same sentiment that most of Wall street has. They just haven't declared it yet. They're giving him a little Runway.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian King]

I've been told that there's no chance in the next 10 years that Apple ever has that number one market cap space again. Given the landscape for what like he's like, I'm being every firm on Wall Street. They'll never be number one in market cap again.

[Troy Millings]

It's gonna be tough. It's great. I've been just doing the research on it and I know the service businesses is helping it stay afloat. And I shouldn't even say stay afloat when we're talking about a $3 trillion company. But it has been one of the leading barometers for it. But it is going to be tough. You figure at 206, right. That which has been raised to. You're talking about a 5 trillion.

[Ian King]

5 trillion.

[Troy Millings]

This is no longer in the force. This is now 5 trillion dollar company with really no slowdown. No.

[Ian King]

And to the point, the gentleman made on BlackRock, we haven't even got enterprise scale agents yet.

[Troy Millings]

What if they created an enterprise product?

[Ian King]

See, and that's, that's the just take over everything.

[Troy Millings]

Right. Like yeah, we, this is the product we have now. But we want to tap into some of that market. We have huge hyperscalers that are part of our business. But we want the everyday person. Then what do you do? There's nothing you could do.

[Ian King]

Told you.

[Rashad Bilal]

Q. Q. Q, a company that we speak a lot about Invest with Invesco. They will be at Invest Fest. Invesco will be doing a workshop at Invest Friday.

[Troy Millings]

Yes, they will.

[Rashad Bilal]

Once again, I, I don't see why you would miss Friday. Man. It's so much value being provided on Friday. But a lot of people have asked what's the difference between TQQQ and regular.

[Ian King]

QQQ of course I know people are looking at it from a cost basis only. I just think that. And both have advantages. I think the advantage that QQQ does have though in terms of that ETF is not only the construction of it, but how much money is being poured into it. A catalyst that moves the ETF up is the institutions, countries and power players that buy it. So that is the. Sometimes the put this in chat, sometimes the buyers of the asset is the moat. Go to cnbc.com type in QQQ, look at all the funds that are buying into it. And I don't think you should just base everything based off price. This TQQ solid for sure, this is cheaper for sure. But the class of buyers in it allows it to stay above a certain threshold and limits the volatility that the ETF does have.

[Troy Millings]

I tell people all the time, it's crazy. In our last class last month, shout to everybody in eylu. I talked about this in socks, which is a semiconductor etf. Socks L, which is when you, when you see a L or you see that letter in front of, of the etf, it's usually a leverage etf. And so the, the leverage position is, I would say it's not for freshmen strictly like kind of especially if you're doing options because leverage just means that there's a multiple. Right. And so for example, tqq is a 3x multiple of. Right. So what does that mean? If qqq goes up 10 in a day, tqqq is going to go up 30, which is great. On the upside, on the downside, which is why you don't do these things long term. On the downside. Right. It's the inverse. And so your gains can turn negative very quickly if you're not doing this, if you're not diligent, if you're not experienced. And so when you. Leverage positions are tricky, which is why I don't suggest anybody.

[Ian King]

I never advocate for them publicly. Nope.

[Troy Millings]

But that, that's kind of the difference. I know some people that day trade, they can make money doing it. Great. Some options you can do it, right? If it, I mean the semiconductor one, it feels like, hey, if I could do it. And that was my rationale. I was like, let me just try this out before I tell people about it. It was like my rationale was like semiconductor space, not going anywhere is going to lead this next revolution. If I can get a 3x multiple on it, great. Even if it pulls down just a bit, I'll be able to get out the position which I Haven't yet. It actually worked out. On the upside, I got it in May. And obviously you've seen what's happened with Nvidia and all of a sudden since then, but at some point, if it gets to a threshold that I'm not comfortable with anymore, I'm out of there.

[Rashad Bilal]

Talk about Timu and Sheen, who shot.

[Troy Millings]

About a lot of people. A lot of people.

[Ian King]

This is more of geopolitical exposure. I think it was a great question, but I, I don't. Once again, catalyst versus noise. That's how I'm gonna start classifying everything. If it's the catalyst to move the GDP of the market or of a company, I'll say it. This is more noise for the time being.

[Troy Millings]

But. But this helps. This helps the US Economy. I'm gonna break it down. Yeah, well, Amazon for sure, right? Because what happened was the US ended the duty free threshold for products under $800. If you've ever been El Timu or Sheen, you know that there's millions of products that are under that threshold when they put the tariffs. Those products now have 145 tariff on them. So think about what that does to a product that you were selling for 15.99. Right? It doesn't feel like a cheap product anymore. What has happened as a result? TMU's app, right? This is since April to the end of June, Temu's app has fallen by 77% usage and sheen has fallen down by 51% in Q2. In the same span, Amazon's monthly sales have rose by 9% and jumped to nearly 12% in July by itself. So people used to say, oh, there's bargain shopping over there, bargain shopping over there. Usage has gone down. We've seen growth going on, revenues going down. Where has it gone? It's come back to Amazon, to Amazon and American companies, in fact, so much so that Timu Machine are now trying to figure out how they build infrastructure here so that they can still ship to customers without the tariffs. Which again, I mean, if they're gonna make America great. And that's the, the phrase from a business standpoint, if you've got those people saying, hey, we can't, we're not going to sell. We're not selling the same. And you can see the percentages go down. If they are now forced to build factories here, that's a win for them.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. Well, ladies and gentlemen, get your tickets to Invest Fest, please. Thank you. Reform is giving away 50 tickets for free as part of their community Give back initiative first come, first serve general mission. Go to check out and into code reform. Also virtual tickets are available for people that can't be there physically in person. We have some surprises at investment we can't talk about but you know, just don't DM me.

[Ian King]

I won't tell you. I don't know.

[Rashad Bilal]

Keep your eyes open.

[Troy Millings]

He knows, he's just not telling you.

[Rashad Bilal]

Registration starts Thursday from 10 o' clock in the morning to 6 o' clock at night. Georgia World Congress Center. And then programming starts Friday morning at 10 o' clock sharp. Friday morning all day Friday to 6 o'. Clock. We're actually doing a book signing.

[Troy Millings]

Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

All of the stuff, all the runner show is on the website and the app, the app is free. The app is called invest festival app and then VIP night is Friday night and then all day Saturday and all day Sunday programming. So three days of full programming a night. 85 self comedy show on Thursday satellite event. Get your tickets 85south.com and we look forward to seeing you. And then the last thing I'll say on this is support black business. My cousin has a clothing store, yes in in Atlanta called price tag please and he's offering 20 off anybody that has a Invest Fest ticket, any. So if you gotta get your drip, you gotta get your drip. Go to price tag Atlantis, 3210 Rose well Road Northwest Atlanta, Georgia.

[Troy Millings]

Pull up.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, it's in Buckhead. So go to Price tag Atlanta. That's their Instagram price tag atl. And if you have an Invest fest ticket, anything that in the store they sell all kind of like sneakers, jeans, all types of stuff.

[Troy Millings]

If you're trying to get fly, if only. If you're trying to get fly, 20 off please.

[Ian King]

And if you want to get it from the market, the clothes are there.

[Troy Millings]

The hats are there. Go support black business.

[Rashad Bilal]

What you say?

[Ian King]

If you want to get rich from the market, go to universe.com please do that. Also do that legendary presentation coming Sunday. Where to get in, where to get out. The best companies to invest in join Red Panda. If I made you money, please put yes in chat. But legendary presentation this Sunday.

[Troy Millings]

I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to seeing all of y'.

[Rashad Bilal]

All.

[Troy Millings]

I'm looking forward to the pitches, I'm looking forward to the stories. My number will be inactive starting Wednesday. Yeah, but I looked forward to seeing everybody in person. I look forward to seeing all of y' all shout out to everybody that's going to be in Attendance. Yeah. It's going to be magical. All pun intended.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's that time, ladies and gentlemen. See CF VIP night.

[Ian King]

Rashad, you excited? Oh, what you put together for the.

[Rashad Bilal]

Trip, but you still working on it? Still working on it.

[Ian King]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

You know, last minute changes, last minute decisions, you know, variety of different things.

[Ian King]

Is that a velvet pocket on your shirt?

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, glad you said that. Shout out to Ocean's Gallery. Shout out to Oceans Gallery. They gave me this merch. Shirt pocket. Then I got the shorts on, too. Matching short set. Ocean's Gallery, the Instagram, Oceans Gallery company, they've sent me a. A big bundle of merch.

[Ian King]

So I'm still not a paid ad. When y' all clip this up.

[Rashad Bilal]

What? Black business. Support black business at all costs. And there's after parties, too. That's going to be happening, so you know how that go. You going to after parties?

[Troy Millings]

Not definitely. On Saturday.

[Ian King]

What time we going? Saturday, I'm gonna go Friday. Saturday I'm not.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I know. You're not going out Saturday.

[Ian King]

I ain't going on Saturday. Friday, maybe. My thought always is most of the people who are partying would love to have my spot on that stage. It's my job not to give it up.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. That's a fact.

[Troy Millings]

Great mentality.

[Rashad Bilal]

You got to stay focused at all. At all times.

[Troy Millings]

Great mentality.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. You got to stay focused at all times. Because once you lose your focus.

[Ian King]

It happened with Apple.

[Troy Millings]

You could lose a lot happened with Intel.

[Ian King]

Listen, if I mess up on stage, they'd be in the club. Richie. Hey, bro. Next year, let me get that slot in here.

[Troy Millings]

It wasn't until he did up there.

[Ian King]

Nope. Don't offer me no drinks. I'm not drinking. Yo, man, I got some tequila for you.

[Troy Millings]

We good. We good. Strictly water.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, That's a fact. That's a fact. But. But yeah. Now that's Friday. Bamboo on Friday. That's the official after party stat. Sunday is Flow nightclub and Saturday, pvo. The good folks at pvo, they doing it. They're doing their thing.

[Troy Millings]

So I'll try.

[Ian King]

My best Sunday, I might go out of celebration but I'll try my best.

[Rashad Bilal]

After party bops, tune in the Blackout.

[Troy Millings]

Yo, I'm gonna have to. I'm just here so I don't get fined. Yep, that's my shirt. Gonna say I'm looking forward to, though, man, get your rest now. Get. Organize yourself. Organize your life. Look, this is it. This is it. It's showtime. It's showtime and we're looking forward to seeing y', all, man. Love is love. Be good to each other. We see y' all Wednesday. Blackout. Peace.

[Ian King]

Peace.

[Cedric Nash]

This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance engineer, he hears things differently. To the untrained ear, everything on his shop floor might sound fine, but he can hear gears grinding or a belt slipping. So he steps in to fix the problem at hand before it gets out of hand. And he knows Granger's got the right product. He needs to get the job done, which is music to his ears. Call click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.