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

Summary

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

Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Release Date: March 28, 2025
Host: Ryan Alford
Co-host: Chris Hansen

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Introduction

In this episode of Right About Now with Ryan Alford, hosts Ryan Alford and Chris Hansen explore the significant decline in consumer sentiment, its broader economic implications, the ongoing shift from brick-and-mortar retail to e-commerce, and emerging investment opportunities amidst these changes. Balancing insightful analysis with engaging commentary, the duo provides listeners with a comprehensive overview of the current business landscape.

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1. Decline in Consumer Sentiment

Key Highlights:

• University of Michigan Survey: Preliminary March results indicate a sharp decline in consumer sentiment, dropping from 79.4 in March 2024 to 57.9 in March 2025—a 27% year-over-year decrease.

  "It's a massive drop." – Chris Hansen [04:37]

• Economic Impact: This significant downturn reflects reduced consumer spending and increased saving, leading to tighter wallets and stagnating interest rates. The hosts emphasize that consumer sentiment directly influences economic behavior, with potential long-term repercussions if not addressed.

Notable Quotes:

• "This administration has been guns ablazing in things they're doing... but the numbers probably won't surprise you." – Chris Hansen [05:23]
• "We're in a heavy contraction. It feels like everyone is contracting." – Ryan Alford [05:37]

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2. Policy Implications and Communication

Key Highlights:

• Administration’s Role: Ryan and Chris critique the current administration for implementing policies without adequately considering public sentiment. They stress the need for balanced economic strategies that address both short-term pain and long-term benefits.

• Communication Gaps: The hosts advocate for clearer communication from policymakers to reduce uncertainty. They suggest that frequent changes in economic policies hinder consumers' ability to plan for the future.

Notable Quotes:

• "We need some good news. Feels a little gloomy, a little flat, a little stagnant." – Ryan Alford [06:21]
• "We need to do nothing but keep the out of the business news. That's what we do." – Ryan Alford [42:50]

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3. Impact on Entrepreneurship and the Job Market

Key Highlights:

• Business Closures and Challenges: The episode highlights personal anecdotes of entrepreneurs facing business closures and individuals struggling to secure employment despite strong educational backgrounds.

• Job Market Stagnation: Chris discusses the difficulties faced by job seekers, emphasizing the high level of uncertainty and the lack of actionable support from the administration.

Notable Quotes:

• "Another friend... just got out of the mortgage business. Can't deal with the pressure." – Ryan Alford [07:51]
• "I ran into her trying to put in resumes. No one's calling, getting no callbacks." – Ryan Alford [09:07]

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4. Shift in Retail: E-commerce Dominance

Key Highlights:

• Store Closures: Major retailers like Forever 21 and GameStop are shuttering numerous stores, attributing closures to the rise of affordable e-commerce platforms such as Shein and Temu.

• E-commerce Growth: The hosts discuss how online shopping offers convenience and competitive pricing, leading to the decline of traditional malls and niche brick-and-mortar stores.

Notable Quotes:

• "Forever 21 expected to close all US stores... The cheap E-commerce came and got them." – Chris Hansen [20:32]
• "The malls can they survive? I don't think we've seen the end of this bloodbath of stores." – Chris Hansen [21:50]

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5. Investment Opportunities: Trading Cards

Key Highlights:

• Pokemon Cards as Investments: Ryan and Chris highlight the resurgence of Pokemon trading cards, particularly the prismatic series, as lucrative investment opportunities. They note that certain cards can yield significant returns when purchased retail.

• Market Dynamics: The discussion touches on the authenticity and potential resale value of these cards, emphasizing their appeal as both collectibles and investment assets.

Notable Quotes:

• "If you see any prismatic or 151s and you want a good investment, buy them if it's retail." – Chris Hansen [37:12]
• "These prismatic cards... you can immediately sell them for 15 there." – Chris Hansen [37:52]

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6. Stock Market Volatility and Cryptocurrency

Key Highlights:

• GameStop's Pivot: The hosts examine GameStop's strategic shift towards investing in Bitcoin as a means to stay relevant amidst declining physical store sales.

• Market Behavior: Ryan and Chris discuss the volatile nature of the stock market and cryptocurrency, highlighting how emotional sentiment drives investment decisions and market fluctuations.

Notable Quotes:

• "The pivot to Bitcoin is really a defense against irrelevance." – Chris Hansen [24:03]
• "GameStop shares soared 16% in pre-market trading." – Chris Hansen [26:35]

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7. Sports Franchises and High-Value Investments

Key Highlights:

• Boston Celtics Sale: The episode covers the record-breaking sale of the Boston Celtics for $6 billion, showcasing the immense value and profitability of major sports franchises.

• Investment Lessons: Ryan and Chris draw parallels between sports investments and other high-value assets, underscoring the importance of strategic investment choices in volatile markets.

Notable Quotes:

• "Bought it for 360 million in 2002 and sold it for 6 billion." – Chris Hansen [33:25]
• "That's a nice return on investment." – Chris Hansen [33:30]

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8. Conclusion and Call to Action

Key Highlights:

• Uplifting Consumer Sentiment: Ryan and Chris reiterate the urgent need to improve consumer sentiment to drive economic recovery. They emphasize the role of positive messaging and strategic policies in achieving this goal.

• Exploration of Alternative Investments: The hosts encourage listeners to explore alternative investment avenues, such as trading cards, to diversify their portfolios amidst current economic uncertainties.

Notable Quotes:

• "If you want this economy to keep moving, you need this consumer to have an uplifted spirit and a belief in what is happening." – Chris Hansen [16:04]
• "We're giving you alternate investment avenues here." – Chris Hansen [42:45]

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Final Thoughts

This episode provides a thorough analysis of the current economic challenges, highlighting the critical decline in consumer sentiment and its cascading effects on various industries. By examining the shift towards e-commerce and identifying emerging investment opportunities, Ryan and Chris offer listeners valuable insights and actionable strategies to navigate the evolving business environment.

For those interested in delving deeper into the topics discussed, Right About Now with Ryan Alford invites you to visit www.RyanIsRight.com and follow @rightaboutnowshow and @ryanalford on Instagram for additional content and updates.

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Transcript

[Ryan Alford]

This is Right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years in over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.

[Chris Hansen]

What's up, guys? Welcome to right about now. It's our weekly business news here on March 28, 2025, joined as always by Chris Hansen down in Miami. What's up, Chris?

[Brian]

What's up, Brian? How are you, bro?

[Chris Hansen]

I'm good, I'm good. Here in Greenville, South Carolina, our studios here on the Swamp Rabbit Trail at Social House Chris is down in Miami. We're always here to bring you the news. We take the BS out of news, out of the news, Chris. And you know, we're going to be taking the BS today. You know, like if you listen to, watched our show, if you're not watching, you need to get on YouTube. Go check that out. YouTube or Spotify, you can watch see how pretty Chris is. You never know what he's going to be wearing. Always fashionable. I'm trying to keep up with them. But in all seriousness, you know, we lean certain directions. I think we try to keep out of the politics and more the policies of what we believe in. And I think when things are going good, we talk about how it's good. And I think when things are not feeling good, I think we've been talking about that and today's episode, we're going to dive deep into some studies and surveys that go on. Some are yearly, some are quarterly, some are monthly. But it's really about consumer sentiment and about how people feel. And, you know, I think the numbers probably won't surprise you. They didn't surprise Chris and I as we were looking at them. And we're going to dive deep into that because I think this administration has been guns ablazing in things that they're doing. And many of the policies I think we, we tend to agree with directionally. But at the same time, a word of caution has kind of been coming from us with things lately how we've felt, like at least in our circles, things have felt and the studies have come out on the overall consumer sentiment, how people are feeling, what they're, you know, how for both currently and future thinking, because it's also built into that, like, you know, what's your prognosis? Like, how do you feel about the future? And some of these numbers are staggering. And I think we're At a real pivotal point where the policymakers and the central reserve and a lot of people really need to take a look at this because people think with their head and they buy with their heart. And literally people are not buying. You've got money staying on the shelf if there is some. You've got tightening of the wallet overall. You've got interest rates that have been stagnant and real estate market that's stagnant in a lot of markets. And I think we're coming to a head with where if we don't get ahead of getting consumers feeling positive about the changes, feeling positive about the economy, feeling positive about the potential of real estate opportunities, we're in for a tough road. And the sentiment of the country drives the economic behavior of the comp of the country. And we're going to dive deep into that today. But I think it's time that we really point out, hey, let's talk the good, bad and the other. We take the BS out of stuff. We're going to take it out today. And so we're going to dive deep into some of these stats. I think some might be surprising, some might not be. And talk about a few other business updates of the day here on the business news of the week. Chris. I know, I mean let's just jump right into it, man. We've been kind of talking about this like I think more our own sentiment right. The last few episodes, like eh, like we need some good news feels a little gloomy, a little flat, a little stagnant. And one of these, which is a survey of consumers from the University of Michigan, the preliminary results for March, looking at the index of consumer sentiment. How do they feel about the country? And it slid another 11 points. We're at 57.9 is the consumer sentiment which is hovering right around, you know, half feel good, half feel bad. And that's a 27% negative change year over year. In March of 2024, we were at 79.4. Right. It's a big drop, dude.

[Brian]

It's a massive drop.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. And you know, take the who was president out of it. It's just whoever's in charge needs to be paying attention that we can't just heads down to blazing, you know, getting all these policies, you know, all these campaign promises done without recognizing what is the sentiment of. And this is, this is covering Republicans, Democrats, everyone else. Everyone's just kind of meh about the overall economy. A lot of money staying put in the wallet, in the savings account. And it's a lot Tighter for everyone else because inflation's still an issue. It's not good, man.

[Brian]

No. I feel like we're in a heavy contraction. And when I look at the numbers, right down 22 from December 24th, when I read that, I'm like, that feels right. Or it feels like it's higher than 22%.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brian]

Because. And I don't know if it was the Christmas spirit that people were living in fantasy land, even though I do know a lot of people. I remember saying this deer felt weird at Christmas because even then things were still tight. But I had a conversation with a friend of mine last week. Two different friends, actually. One launching a company, one her company that she was working with is shutting down. And it kind of just seems to be. That's the rhythm right now is people are contracting. Even entrepreneurs I know are contracting. Right. I know we've pulled in on some things we do. It's like everyone's kind of huddling up a little bit. And obviously I always say this, I feel like the new administration, like the coach has made the calls on the play, but there's no action on the field, Jay. Yeah, or maybe there's some action on the field, but there's no points on the board. And I mean, we all understand you can't turn a ship around overnight, but I think the administration could do a better job and maybe some messaging and just in informing people of what's going on. Right. It's great. We know these executive orders and whatnot. But I mean, I think back, like, put someone, I think back at Kaylee McEnany, like doing daily updates, you know, and the. When she was press secretary, like, bring back that, you know, people, just some more up to date stuff. And I would say because there's so much information overload, false information, misleading information, all the above, like, get out there and tell us what's going on. Right. Because like you said, I got another buddy, just got out of the mortgage business. Right. Can't deal with the pressure. I got a family commission only. Can't do it, switch to a W2 job. So. And I don't necessarily want to see people doing that either. Right. I want to see people trying to build themselves and work for themselves. But same with the job market. Another friend went to college with her. She told me last week I ran into her trying to put in resumes. No one's calling, getting no callbacks. Smart girl, well educated. So it's. We're in an odd time.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. I mean, I like data and facts and right you know, so we've, we've been talking sentiment, talking things like perceptive. And then you know, you look at this data and you know, back to the White House, like, I think there's got to be some balance here. Like we can want to do the tariff war and it can have positive long term effects, but it's got to be balanced out with the realities of today and the sentiment today, the inflation of today. And again, I'm not going to see her as an economic, as economic specialist to tell you whether that long term benefit outweighs the short term pressure that we're feeling. I'm not, I don't know. That's my pay grade. Yeah, but I will say, but I will say you can't ignore how people, the majority of America is feeling. It's just, it's just reality. And this was the biggest thing. I mean, look at this for, it's. Despite their greater confidence following the election, Republicans posted a sizable 10% decline in their expectations index in March. So this isn't partisan, this is everybody.

[Brian]

Yeah, well, especially when you know, the market takes a hit, right. I think of the retirement generation. I don't, doesn't matter what political class you are, if the market goes down and you look at that retirement account is down, you're not going to feel good. Right. Especially if you're on, you know, what do they call it, like set payments, right. You're on a lot of income, fixed income, right. Market goes down. Then you look at the grocery store, right. And that's still hasn't really eased up much pressure as far as inflation goes there. I have an example, but I can't remember it now.

[Chris Hansen]

It'll come back. I'm gonna go through a couple of these other things. While current economic conditions were little changed, expectations for the future deteriorated, deteriorated across multiple facets of the economy, including personal finances, labor markets, inflation, business conditions and stock markets. Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors. Frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan. There it is right there. You know, like that's it. That's kind of what you were saying, fixed income. You got this stuff going on, you want to plan. You can't plan when you don't know what the impact of these things are going to do. So there needs to be more discussion about short term, long term and hey, I mean, and this ain't cutting it. There'll be a little pain in the short term. Define what that means, please.

[Brian]

What is short term? Yeah, an example today, I did see, and I was digging, right. Because we do this show, I saw that India basically was kind of lightening up on the tariff war, and they had said they would drop a lot of the, the, the tax on imported American goods. So it looks like positive news there, right?

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah.

[Brian]

But we haven't seen that on any headlines. Right. No one's talking about that. And that's where, hey, if you're the administration, be shouting these wins from the rooftop because you know that everyone else is hating on you for the tariffs. And now when you've got everyone in America, Right. Even like you said, the Republicans with their expectations, it. That should be the signal. Like, all right, guys, we need to do a little priority, right? Yeah. Like, you're a marketing guy. We do marketing. It's like, do some damage control. Let's get this sentiment up. Let's, let's make people feel good again.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. Because I'm looking for the silver lining. Like, you know, like, I, I'm like, going, okay, I, I agree with, like, fundamentally with the policy, but I need to see a little silver lining. Short term, long term plan. Because it could come off like this article. You know, the, the summary says as a little bit of gyrating, like, I, it's kind of pew, pew. But, you know, we're shooting bullets and it's like, it's great, but it's kind of like, fire, aim, ready.

[Brian]

And I feel like we've just been getting the Trump Elon show since the election, the inauguration and the Doge stuff. And it's like, that's all great. And that is definitely part of, you know, balancing the budget is definitely an important part and cutting waste. But even when I go on Twitter, I'm like, all I see is Elon arguing with people about government policy. And yeah. There's no game plan.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. Like, or it's not clear.

[Brian]

Right. And even if it's just, hey, we're, we're doing the tariff war and we're, we're holding firm and we're going to hold our hand.

[Chris Hansen]

I mean, we need to bring jobs back to the US we need higher pay. Yeah. We need all of that. Yeah. But what's the balance of the long term and the short term? And a little bit of pain is not a balancing plan.

[Brian]

Sell me on why I should keep tolerating this pain. Right. Convince me. Soften it.

[Chris Hansen]

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

[Brian]

Almost like in the, in the election speeches. Right. When you're campaigning, we're bringing jobs. Keep reiterating that. Where are the jobs going? Where are we doing mining? Where's the plans? I know personally that there's plans for these things and I know guys working in those industries that tell me, yeah, red tapes being cut, projects are being opened, but I don't think the general population knows that. And I think when whether that's the mainstream media obviously hates this administration is part of the problem. But I think the administration can play some offense a little better on just Communications 101.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah, exactly. And because I'm not sitting here telling you that I know that the enactment and the things that are happening are going to cause necessary short term pain. But what I am telling you is in my wheelhouse, which is marketing and back to the buy with their heart. If you want this economy to keep moving, you need this consumer to have an uplifted spirit and a belief in what is happening. And you got to get them to buy into that and understand what's happening in the short term to assist them in sustaining either through that short pain or to get them off the. I think we got a lot of money that's kind of getting a little shrunk back up. Like, oh, I'm putting, you know, getting tight all this buying gold. Because you know, even in my own mind I didn't think my crypto would double in a month, but I sure as hell didn't think It'd be down 33% in three months. I bet you didn't, Chris.

[Brian]

Oh no, I don't think anyone planned for anything that's going on. Even in the. The stock market. Guys with Nvidia for example, you know, that big debacle. It's like.

[Chris Hansen]

Because tell me what's good right now, Chris. Stock market's down.

[Brian]

Crypto playing cards, apparently.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah, yeah. That's why we're talking trading cards. That's the only thing is up.

[Brian]

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

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. And I don't. And I'm not sitting here blaming the administration for all of that. It's really regardless of the administration. But it is what it is. Whatever caused it, caused it. Maybe it was already built in. These next six months were going to happen no matter who's in office or what's happened. But the sentiment sucks right now. And so this administration job is to make it not suck.

[Brian]

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

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah, right.

[Brian]

It's like a run. If you're going running. It sucks a lot less when you know, I got one mile left as opposed to, hey, Chris, just keep running. I'll let you know when we're done. Right?

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. Because my concern is less as an entrepreneur, I'm going to figure mine out. I don't need the administration to figure it out for me. But here's the thing. Anything I sell is going to be bought by consumers or businesses that are impacted by this sentiment. So I need the sentiment to be higher. Not because any of the administration or policy is in my personal way as an entrepreneur, but I just know things move. The money moves, the sales moves. Everything moves better when this is, when this is where it needs to be. And that's the point of this rant, if you call it is. Somebody's got to take accountability responsibility for driving this up because it's a slippery damn slope. Let's just say that with where things could go because people start tightening up on everything and your interest rates don't go down. Just be careful in the short term while you play the long term.

[Brian]

Mean that need that morale up, you know?

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah, exactly. We kind of like the old team. You know, you got a team of players out on the court. I mean, everybody, like if you can't make them believe no matter how good, bad or different it is, they're never going to play well. And we need to get some cheerleaders. And you know, again, I, I like the theory of what I'm hearing Elon's doing. I, it, it sounds great, but I don't know that he's the cheerleader. He's the, he's a pioneer and an innovator. But I don't know if he's going to lead the rally of the, of, of the, the sentiment. I think you're gonna have to have somebody else doing that. And I think it's going to have to be driven by, okay, the enactment of, of certain things, both telling the plan. But we need those interest rates to go down.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Chris Hansen]

And if you still have inflation hovering, they're not going to want to do that. But need money that, that loosens up money in the market. We talk about that a lot and you know, refis and cells and. Because that's the biggest transaction most people have. And so it's the moment in time when their most amount of money in one direction that goes in and out of hands and the residual leftover of money made on a sale refinanced is when you get that injected into the overall economy and it feels Stalled right now as much as anything. It's like, yeah, I don't, I don't personally feel like I see like the doom and gloom. It's more this really hard pause that's happening right now. It just feels like we're at a. Like if you were walking, we're, we're stuck in mud. Like when you're stuck in mud, you take one step forward, you think you're out of the mud, you're kind of still in it. It's kind of like the crypto, you know. Up 10% one day, down 11 the next. It's like, all right, can we get unstuck here a little bit? Can we get a, a little ride of, of momentum? Good news. We'll see what happens. I'm gonna jump ahead here. A couple of retail things I don't think are necessarily related to this economy. I think this is more trends Overall. Chris. But Forever 21 and GameStop both closing retail stores. Forever 21 expected to close all US stores. That damn Sheen and Teemu. The cheap E Commerce came and got them. I do see Sheen everywhere.

[Brian]

It's all over the place. The ads are everywhere. And it's so cheap. Yeah, I mean, I've never purchased from it, but I know it's very popular with the ladies.

[Chris Hansen]

I've bought a couple things like two years ago maybe. And at the time I thought it was pretty decent. I mean, it's like a ten dollar T shirt or something. And it was like more of a fashionable type T shirt. I was like, this is kind of cool. But I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm a double xl, slim fit. So I'm a, I'm a weird, a weird size fitting. And it did okay. Not perfect. I had to buy from certain companies to get the fit I want. But I was impressed with the overall quality. For like a $10, it was better than I would have thought. So, I mean, it's hard. Like we joked about the malls closing. It's like, but you know, this generation, my kids still love to go to the mall. The mall rats. I don't. But the thing is, I don't know if anybody's buying at the mall anymore. You know, like when you and I went to the mall, maybe like 30, 20. Me, me 30 years ago. You. 20 years ago, like the, the parents were at least buying, you know, and the kids may have just been walking around being mall rats, but someone was buying because ECOM wasn't what it is today. It's like, can the malls can they survive?

[Brian]

I mean, even now when I'm in the mall now I'm like, can I find the same thing online for less money, you know?

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah, well, they become the window shopping for online buying, right? Yeah, a little bit. Especially if it's the same brand. Because if you go look at something, you go like, I don't know, like an Express or some store like that where maybe they don't have your size, but you can go look at the actual quality, like the exact item or something, then you buy it online. And I mean, Express is still getting the sale, maybe, but that brick and mortar is not. So I don't, I don't think we've seen the end of this bloodbath of stores. I, I don't think all stores will go away. I just think you're going to see this centralization of, okay, Walmart superstores, which is the equivalent of, you know, gigantic Amazon store, but like, you know, but discount stores like that I can see doing well, large stores where you can get lots of different things, convenience still a factor and, but then these kind of niche things when you can get it online and the tools for buying online have gotten so much easier and the shipping's gotten better and really the overall expectation, people just gotten used to what to expect buying online.

[Brian]

And price wise. Yeah, like, I know for these Temu and Sheen, Shine, whatever you call it, it's definitely super cheap. So. And it's not even like nowadays, most people I don't even think are necessarily always buying because they're looking. There's just ads going constantly as well.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah, here's what it said. Forever 21's brand name international business will come under Authentic Brands Group. Our US Licensees decision to restructure presents an opportunity to modernize the brand. Possible revival if a new US operator takes over. We've lost over 400 million in the last three years, including 150 million in 2024 alone. Jumping ahead here, the GameStop closing a significant number of stores and will vest heavily in bitcoin. It's an interesting headline for a company, right? It's like, well, how is one related to the other? Massive store closures. A thousand stores shut down globally in the past year. 590 in the U.S. 320 in Europe. It's now at 3200 stores, Chris, down from 6000 a decade ago. So cut in half. Probably cut in half again.

[Brian]

Yep.

[Chris Hansen]

Says consumers moving to digital game purchases and streaming. Part of a broader retail decline. With brands like Joanne Forever 21, Kohl's and Macy's also closing stores. GameStop is to invest a portion of its cash reserves in Bitcoin probably.

[Brian]

Smart move.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. The pivot to Bitcoin is really a, a, a defense against irrelevance. It says. An odd thing is it's basically saying the strategy isn't retail but to act as some kind of cryptocurrency investment vehicle.

[Brian]

That's where they're smart because gaming is combining with blockchain and all that. So they might, they might be extremely forward thinking with this and pivoting.

[Chris Hansen]

It is interesting because then it becomes. If you're buying the GameStop start GameStop stock. Hard to say two words, GameStop stock. Why not just buy crypto then like if, like if the whole company is, if they're putting reserves in, their value will be driven by whether Bitcoin grows. It's like you're kind of what are you buying into?

[Brian]

They have such a cult following, you know.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah.

[Brian]

From the Robinhood debacle.

[Chris Hansen]

Kind of like a reseller of this. You know, you could buy direct. You buy it through GameStop. Who's investing. I guess you still have the side of the business that is retail. So hope that it pivots to something different. I guess as far as knowing that they won't go bankrupt would keep your interest in the stock. I guess. But at a certain point, you know, you can't spend half your money on Bitcoin and then why not just buy Bitcoin versus buying GameStop.

[Brian]

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

[Chris Hansen]

Oh yeah. Because you had that whole. The stock jump on this thing $200. It's crazy. Talk about sentiment driving behavior. You know, like that's a hope case study in itself. Emotional levers pulling it. Yeah. GameStop shares soared 16 in pre market trading. So hey, close some stores and your stock goes up. I mean, I guess all about profitability. I, I get it. It's just, it's. Do you get happy about the stock going up or you get sad about the stores closing? I, you can't fight. I'll answer my own question. You can't fight the reality of online and especially this, like digital games. Like you can download them. Like you don't need the physical. Like, I hate the, like I was the first guy to get rid of every CD and DVD I owned. You know, before there was Netflix. Like, it was like, the moment that I could do digital. Like, hard drive driven. All my stuff. I was there. It's like, get rid of this. Those racks. You remember those racks? The racks. Everybody had them in their house. Racks of CDs, racks of DVDs. It was almost like a. I don't know, a trophy of. Of. All right. Look at all those DVDs. Yeah, man, you got that whole collection. All right. Yeah, it's just one more thing you have to dust off.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Chris Hansen]

Or not dust off your college kid, like I was. And, oh, look at all that CD collection, man. Let me go through your collection. Think how foreign things become. Like, as technology changes, it's like, you know, like, oh, let me see your CD collection. Go through it, man. Oh, that. The Cranberries, you know, they got that one song. That's a good one. That lingered. Dave. Matt. I had. I had, like, 50 bootleg Dave Matthews CDs. Like, every concert, like, I was, like, on. I was. That's how I used the Internet when it first started. Is just in college trading live Dave Matthews shows. Yeah, I was a pioneer. Oh, I had tapes. I had. Oh, I had a tape collection. Like, a hundred tapes, according to.

[Brian]

Dude, those are a pirate.

[Chris Hansen]

Oh, yeah, I was pirating there, you know. But Dave didn't care because he was smart. That's why he got so big, because he didn't. They didn't police that. They. They let it happen naturally. The story there, that's an economic story right there. How. How to get big. Don't get in the way of, like, spreading the news because we still went to all the concerts, bought the T shirts, did all the stuff. They made all the money by not getting in the way of the spread of people getting to hear their music. Anyway, I digress. Oh, man, that brings back some memories, dude. Oh, the toy. The work involved, man, with tapes and CDs burning and failing. Oh, God. How bad was it when you'd be burning a cd? And how many times would, like, it fail in the burn? Like, the fact that. The fact that there's a laser in your computer burning a cd. I guess it's not much different than a hard drive now, like, saving shit. But it's just the wild times, man. I've looked at analog digital, man. I'm on, like, all sides of it, like, this analog digital conversion. Crazy. And that's what. Really, what we're talking about with the stores and retail and E Comm. And all that, is this movement from physical to digital. But we do still have to wear the clothes, you know, so whether it's sheen or it's done an ordered E Commerce, until we're living. The day will come, Chris, where it's just a digital close because you never leave your house except digitally. That's the. That gets scary, right?

[Brian]

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

[Chris Hansen]

I don't either. But you could, could you not? I used to be a time where I couldn't see that coming. I could. I'm not saying that I'm gonna embrace wanting to do that, but can't you see that? I can totally see that now.

[Brian]

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

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. And it will matter what your skin is and all that. I mean, my kids already care. You can, like, I will watch my kids playing Fortnite, and they'll spend as much time playing the game as they do picking out their skin before they go. And who they're going to be, like, literally sit there going through it, like, toiling over it. Like, I'm like, that really matters to them. That's how they show off. You know, me growing up, it was wearing my Air Jordans, like, for the first time. And they care about that stuff, too. Which, you know, it's more money, but it's that skin on Fortnite dressing up as, you know, Wimby or something. Like playing Fortnite as Wimby, like, or one of the NBA players. Or LeBron James or a banana. A banana character, which my oldest son does, which kind of trolls everybody. He likes to just kind of do the stupidest. And because he. He wants people to think that. That he thinks that that's cool. When he doesn't, he's actually. It's reverse psychology. Like, he wants to do the stupidest thing.

[Brian]

He's smart.

[Chris Hansen]

This is what you have look forward to, Chris. You have kids, if you have kids.

[Brian]

To be determined.

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. Never know what else we got in the news today. Any other big news? Boston Celtics was sold for a record breaking $6 billion. Boston Celtics have been sold for 6.1 billion big ones, setting a North American sports franchise record led by William Chris Home, a billionaire from private equity. Of course he is. Includes Robert Hale, current Celtics investor, and Bruce Beal. Bill is a terrific person, a true Celtics fan. Born, raised here in Boston. So, bro, gross back. Bought the team in 2002 for 360 million. That's a Nice investment there, Chris. You bought it for 360mil and.02 by my ass. What, 23 years later, you sell it for 6 billion. It's a nice return on investment.

[Brian]

Heck, yeah.

[Chris Hansen]

Was that 30x? That's nice, man. Nice.

[Brian]

Turn around. 100 increase?

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. 6,000. Is it 30x? Isn't that like. I don't do that math. This is a lot of numbers, man. I mean, $6 billion is a lot of damn money, especially for the sports team. It is, but I mean, that's. They make. That's. They make a lot of money, man. All the. Right. It is huge business, especially those sports cards.

[Brian]

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

[Chris Hansen]

Yeah. 1. 600 increase in value over 23 years. All right, there's the math. Not bad. Not bad. That's what I need a crypto to do, Chris. What's. What's xrp? I'm going to look it up right now. While we're doing it, I'm going to see it because I put. You know what? I bet I got so tired of looking at, like, seven things that I only had, like, a little bit in. I moved it all to XRP just so I had one thing to look at.

[Brian]

Consolidated.

[Chris Hansen]

I just consolidated it. Let's see where we're at today. Bear with us here. Up, down, down. Yet again on the week. We're down 4.74%. We're sitting at. Yeah, we're down 7 cents today. 1%, Chris. I mean, it's just like, up, up, up. This chart's like the. My ekg, you know, it's like, up, down, like, you know, like, why is yelling at me? You know, it's.

[Brian]

That's why. I mean, like, you. I just. I don't pay attention to much of the market stuff right now.

[Chris Hansen]

No, I look at it like, that's the first time I've looked at it. Like, once a week, I take a peek. I'm like, all right, whatever.

[Brian]

But I wouldn't mind when it's not moving, you know? And that's an indicator of everything. Like you said, you feel like it's just on pause. You're like, all right, everything. I guess I'll just go to the gym. Like, not gonna have any entertainment from this today.

[Chris Hansen]

Yes. It's these three words that I ask, and everyone should ask themselves, to what end? Everything we do, every dollar we spend, you know, psychoanalyzing everything. But, like, to what end? Like, to what purpose? And that's what we're asking. You know, we've been doing all sports cards lately. And I, you know, I want to be equal opportunity because the kids are into everything. And we've been doing the whole thing on trading cards. We're starting a series on the trading card business with our guests. So we're going to be having some big guests in on the show in the trading card business. Got some good names lined up. We'll be announcing that shortly. We're starting recording next week with some of those talking about the business of trading cards. It's. It is like the stock market in a lot of ways for another potential investment avenue, but also fun. And we've been doing sports cars. But today, hey, I'll go tell you this much, Chris. If you want to know the one thing sold out at every store, it'd be this guy right here. Pokemon. Oh, my God. I thought this is like a thing like 10 years ago, like that. Now you go to a store, every freaking Pokemon rack is empty. I know because my kids are into it and I'm looking to it and maybe I'm into it too, but I like the sports cards better. But, but the kids, my kids like sports cards, but their eyes line up light up for the freaking Pokemon. Yeah. Were you ever into Pokemon, Chris?

[Brian]

I was not. But I do have a memory being on a school bus in fifth grade with a kid who had a Charizard card. And I remember those were like, that was the one big money cards back.

[Chris Hansen]

Now there's like a hundred thousand different characters, but you get these tens, they get two packs. And look, man, they got all these series. Prismatic series is the hot ones right now. That. These 151s, just trust me, if you see any prismatic or 151s and you want a good investment, if you see them for sale, buy them if it's retail. Because let me, Chris, if you find them retail, the certain ones, I mean, they're 4 or 5x. This, this particular one's goes up a couple bucks. Like, you can buy them retail.

[Brian]

And you're gonna have to send me a scouting list so I can go scour Miami for Pokemon.

[Chris Hansen]

Oh, yeah, because, dude, these prismatic cards, they're like $5 for a retail pack. If you find them, you can immediately sell them for 15 there. It's 153 extra money immediately. It's crazy. Like, I've even got a dealer that will buy them for me double. Like, usually you can't make any money selling anything to, like a sports card dealer. This guy will pay, like, if I buy him for Like a, like a two pack thing and I find him for like 10 bucks, he will immediately give me 20 for everyone I can find.

[Brian]

Tell me this though, is there a problem? Like if I were doing ebay, is there a lot of fakes?

[Chris Hansen]

There's some, but there's. It's police. Ebay's pretty good. Like we've been selling some of our stuff and you can see everything that we [e-mail] yeah, that's creative. You like it? Breakingrad.com and our eBay stores, breakingrad.com they have an authenticity guarantee so that like if this card is a certain value, it gets sent to the, to the authenticity person first authenticator or whatever. And so I feel like they've got some stuff to where you could pull that trick like once. You know what I'm saying?

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Chris Hansen]

Like you might could get away with one sale. And it's like, okay, is that worth it? So anyway, we're opening. This is the Scarlet and Violet series. I tell you what, you got to be watching the YouTube. You're doing this. You got to see the pack opening. Pouty on fates. My kids were here, they'd tell you everything about like this particular series and everything like that. You're hoping for these one special cards. The one thing I don't like about Pokemon Chris, and I hope I'm not like jinxing myself. Maybe I'll get the greatest card ever. But the hit rate is pretty low. They're only. The back cards are good. They're kind of get this shiny. You'll see the, the difference in the cards. You probably see this if you're watching YouTube and oh, there's a little ex. That guy's pretty good actually. That's a. I think that's at least a two dollar card. Might be higher. That might be pretty decent there, Chris. I'm sitting here knocking them and then. So funny though. You can see the shine on the card. Can you see that? Are you seeing that, Chris?

[Brian]

Yep.

[Chris Hansen]

Oh, fancy, right?

[Brian]

Nice.

[Chris Hansen]

Holographics put that here on our play button. YouTube play button's gotta be good for something then these energy like this is so trick. This whole thing is a playing game. Like you can play these cards if there's a card game. I mean I open it for the cards and the investment. Yeah, my kids don't even play the game either. I don't know what percent actually play the game. But you can go to some of these stores and there's kids like literally just playing that game. The only problem is if you play the game with the cards, the cards get beat up and they're not worth as much. So I don't know what you're in it for, Right? So, I mean, there's all these characters. They're cool looking, but none of these cards are worth anything until you get to the back. This guy that looks cool, but there's a single gold star that might be worth something. You see these stars at the bottom? That's what'll tell you, like, whether or not it's anything good. This trainer, I don't know who that is, but this might actually be something my kids are gonna have to like. You know, some of these things I can look through and know if I'm seeing something good. My kids have to tell me some of these Pokemons are any good. But anyway, crazy. It's. It's a whole thing. If you get on Facebook, Marketplace, they're freaking everywhere and like for sale because people are just raiding the freaking Walmarts and targets and everything else.

[Brian]

So the word is out.

[Chris Hansen]

The word is out. There's our hits. I think both of those are pretty decent. That might be. I. That could be anywhere from Funny things about these Pokemons is these could be like $1 cards or these can be like 50 to 100 cards. You never know.

[Brian]

Pretty.

[Chris Hansen]

It's hard to tell.

[Brian]

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

[Chris Hansen]

I know we're gonna get them on Clayton Hudson, Hogan or Nash. Check us out@breaking rad.com or breaking rad underscore on Instagram. See everything we're doing, Having fun, teaching my kids business through sports cards or they're teaching me business. I don't know which one it is. Chris. Teaching me the business. Hey, that's. Hey, no doom and gloom here getting into sports cards. We're giving you alternate investment. This is all about alternate investment avenues here. You know, like I will say, the sentiment meter on sports cards is up. Like everything else. Kind of stagnant. Everything else. Trading cards is kind of up a little bit. Especially Pokemon's. Like, the craze is out there, dude. We'll see what happens. Any final words today, my friend?

[Brian]

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

[Chris Hansen]

Yes. Hey, and hey, let's get the sentiment up. But we. Hey, let's. Let's get some. Let's get the interest rates down. Let's get some plans in place, talked about. And we're gonna do nothing but keep the out of the business news. That's what we do. That's what we're here for, go to Ryan is right.com you'll find the highlight clips, the full episode, links to YouTube, links to trading cards, other alternative investment routes, and links to Chris on Instagram. Even if you came here just for that, it'll be there, we promise. Chris, I appreciate you, brother. We'll see you guys next time on Right about now.

[Ryan Alford]

This has been Right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast network production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.