BENZINGA ELECTRIC VEHICLES CONFERENCE TOMORROW SEPTEMBER 22, 2021 Click here to register for FREE
Episode Summary:

• UBER's Wild Ride
• Crypto Update
• How To Trade The Volatility

Guests:

Kristen Helsel CRO Ideanomics $IDEX 24:00

Richard MacPherson CEO of Midwest Energy Emissions Corp $MEEC

Meade Wells, Founder https://www.altso.org/ 39:00

Hosts:

Aaron Bry

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aaronbry5

Hot Stocks Luke Jacobi

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lukejacobi

Jason Raznick

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonraznick

• Subscribe to all Benzinga Podcasts here
• Get 20% off Benzinga PRO here
• Become a BENZINGA AFFILIATE and earn 30% on new subscriptions

Disclaimer: All of the information, material, and/or content contained in this program is for informational purposes only. Investing in stocks, options, and futures is risky and not suitable for all investors. Please consult your own independent financial adviser before making any investment decisions.

Unedited Transcript

what's up, everybody. Welcome to the power hour on Spencer. That's Aaron Bree in the dark studio. There. Dark. I got the lights on. It's not, it's not that dark, whatever it is, a little dungeon in here, but it's also just gloomy and dark outside in Detroit today. Uh, it's gloomy. The more kids to dare I say, AB my question for you is, are you buying the dip or you sum the rip?

That is my origin. Both. Um, yeah, so Spencer, I'm glad you asked. So yesterday I did get in and buy a little, you know, a few dips out there. You can stay at that's what you bought. Um, okay. So yesterday I bought some shares of ticker, I N D a. You might know this one. Spencer w the Indian ETF I did. Wow. Oh man.

I got it here. Yeah. So essentially, um, you know, I think with like so much fear surrounding everything in China, um, a lot of investors are going to look for other emerging markets to dip their fingers into. Um, and actually it's a, it's a little known fact that India's economy has actually been growing at a faster rate than China's over the past couple of years.

Not like not through the economy. Bigger than China knows, but that it's growing faster. So like it's projected that India's economy is going to, you know, 10 X over the next 10 years versus China's like five vaccine or whatever the numbers are. So I, I like the in India trade right now. And I just found this as like an easy way to kind of dip my toes into it.

I didn't, um, enter like a huge position of this or anything. I think I bought about five shares. So about $250 worth. Yeah. Wait, I want to tell you under the bus here, are there any companies in this ETF that you or I, or anyone else what I've heard of? Um, so I did look at the holdings on ETF, uh, and there's one.

Company that I'd heard about before. Let me figure out which one it was. Um, but no, I don't, I don't think any big names that like people really trade here a lot. Is this a, what is this? Fuse is a trade. This is a short term thing. No, not at all. No. I'm just going to buy this and hold it. I think that, um, you know, I think India's economy, like I said, is going to keep growing over the.

Five 10 years or so. So I that's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at just, oh, nice. A gone with the, a little bit obscure ETF. I N D a like, why can't it, what else did you buy yesterday? Um, the, I think that was. Stock that I purchased yesterday for the first time I have been watching a couple other stocks that are just in my holdings.

Um, FUBU, I have a pretty big, uh, steak. I don't have a big stake in FUBU. Like the company that my portfolio is, uh, you know, heavily weighted toward FUBU right now. Um, so FUBU actually dipped today at one point down more than 3%, uh, since then, Oh an hour ago at 11, it's kinda been ripping up. So, um, FOBO is coming back up and I'm waiting Spencer to see I'm looking at the chart.

It looks like we are in a little like downtrend on FUBU. And if we continue this downtrend down to around the $16 range where there's previous support, I'm going to buy more shares to kind of average my costs down. Hmm. Never. You're never frowning average. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, look, I, I. Um, you know, going to be, I'm going to persevere and I'm not going to let this trade beat me.

All right, dude, you duty, you know what you do, you, you w we can all, all we control, we can control. I can't control you. You do you, man. I hope it works out for you. That is a risky strategy, but I hope it works out for you. I mean, look, I I've said it before that I originally invested in FOBO, uh, you know, with very high hopes since then my hopes have dampered a little bit.

I haven't gotten to the point where I'm just like, okay, I don't want this stock in my portfolio anymore. And completely shedding all my shares. So that's what. I'm going to, uh, you know, continue to try this trade out until I'm profitable. And if, if a few months from now, Spencer, I'm still talking I'm in the red on FUBU.

Then you can tell me it's time to say goodbye. Fair enough. Fair to break up completely. Okay. Real quick. Before we keep going a couple house keeping items, house. Item number one, go ahead and smash that like button for us, please. And thank you. Housekeeping item number two. Our next event is actually tomorrow.

There is a graphic up on the bottom, right of the screen. They are going to BZ Evie. BZ V con.com to, uh, see who will be presenting speaking tomorrow at the Benzinga electric, you have a conference it'll be all day right here on a YouTube nine to five. Uh, X pong will be there. Ticker X, P E V G M will be there.

Archimoto will be there ticker FUV so, uh, big names we'll be there tomorrow. Uh, and we were so excited. Uh, for the stuff that we actually couldn't wait. And we got an Evie guest on the power hour today coming up in a couple of minutes here, actually, we're going to have the chief revenue officer of ID Nomics.

Uh, Kristen Helsel ticker IDX. That'll be at 1215. That'll be followed by Richard MacPherson, the CEO of, uh, me, uh, Emmy B2C environmental at 1230. We're going to talk, uh, power and, uh, Yeah, how do we get our power in this country at 1230 and then 1245. We're going to talk with a former headphone manager who is doing what I think is what we all should do is make a lot of money and then devote all his time to, to a good cause, um, need, well, you usually chairman and co-founder of a leg to stand on, um, was a, uh, used to run a hedge fund, octagon asset management.

And, uh, we're gonna talk to me meet about that, but that's the dream right there. Right? Make a lot of money. Devote all your time to, uh, some good cause yeah, look, basically, you got two options right now out there. You can make a lot of money and then try to, uh, you know, go to space or getting a little space race with your, you know, other ultra rich arch-nemesis counterpart, or you can use that money, uh, you know, in a very.

Productive way, like get, get in prosthetics for kids that need them. I know which one I would choose and it's the ladder and that's why we're bringing bead Wells on to talk to him. Um, and yeah, so very, very beautiful. What he's doing there. Steve Cohen in the chat is asking, what did I buy it for? And what do you want to sell it at?

So my average cost, uh, for FUBU is $29 and 76 cents. Um, I'm currently down on the position about 13%, right, right. Um, so definitely not the price action that I've been wanting in FUBU, but what do I want to sell it at? Looking at the chart, Spencer, I see two previous, uh, you know, peaks in the chart. The first one was in December of 2020.

It got all the way up to $62. I'm going to kind of dis I'm going to disregard that one because I, you know, it looked like, I don't know if there was like a short squeeze there or something, but the stock went up a lot and then dropped down a lot really quickly. And then about a month or two later, it got back up to $52.

Um, and you tested those highs again before coming back down. And we've talked about it before Spencer, that there's a lot of studies shown out there that typically stocks do have a tendency to at some point, get back to their previous, uh, highs. Um, so I would be looking. To sell this at around $50. Um, but maybe I would take some profits on the way up from there considering I've been in the red, on this trade for a while.

All right. You've already watched lost the plot here on this. I'm afraid, like I said, I'm rooting for you, man. I hope it works out, uh, knowing this market, it probably will. Uh, but, but, um, good. Seriously, uh, because it seems like you have changed your mind on this one, several times in terms of what you bought a four versus what you're doing with it now.

And, and, uh, stocks don't have to go back to all the time. I was just, just, just remember that they don't have to, they, I think they typically do a. Solar solar up saying, are you still heavily invested in? I would never say I was heavily invested in private prisons. I threw out. Um, what was it? Core civic, tickers.

CVX, I think run th there was, there was a trade. There was a prison trade to be made when biding got elected. I think because, uh, they, the thinking was he was gonna meet the geo group. Right. Is the. Yeah. Yeah. Geo and CoreCivic are the two biggest ones. And yeah, there were, there was thoughts that they were going to outlaw private prisons or whatever.

And then Biden kind of came out and said, I basically just said from a value perspective, Luke and I were going through different companies. Um, that, that was one that I had seen, like thrown around Reddit and stuff that like, Hey, the balance sheet looks very strong on this strong balance sheet on a proven company.

Great. Yeah, exactly. Um, but. Pointed that out. The stock went from about $8 to not when I pointed out, but after I pointed out, it went from about $8 up to, uh, around 12, but is now trading lower from there, back to around the range when I like first brought it up here, but honestly, solar up, I don't even think I was ever in that trade.

I, it was just something that I talked about. Can I say the one trade I made that I, where I felt so dirty, uh, after the fact and I had to like sell my stock like a couple of days later, because I felt so bad about it. Uh, it was last year I bought a what was the ticker, uh, S see, I think I've mentioned this before service Corp international.

Oh man. I should have. Do you know what this company does? No clue. They're a leading provider of funeral homes. Uh, did you, did you buy it as like a COVID play? Oh, wow. That's that's grim. That's Graham Spencer, but wait, so the stock crashed when everything else did and got down here, but I'm surprised, I guess it took a little bit for buyers to come in for that whole, I bought it like, um, this was like in the spring, this was after the bottom.

I bought it. Um, wait, wait, wait. You're talking. That's this. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. You're right. Uh, yeah, I know I bought it. Oh God. It was so volatile. I, I dunno. I bought it somewhere in this vicinity and then I lost, I sorta like three days later because I was like, I can't, I can't do this, like so bad.

Yeah. That's how I feel anytime. Uh, you know, I think there was a point, um, over, uh, you know, w where. Oil and gas companies were actually getting like undervalued and all. And you know, th there's always cyclical flows, right? Like all the money's going to go into growth and green energy until, um, a lot of those assets are overpriced and overbought.

And then a lot of the other energy stocks, the oil and gas ones get oversold and undervalued. And that was kind of pointed out to me by a few, uh, you know, traders that. I take their, uh, you know, opinions, not lightly, you know, guys like gene monster, um, and people like that are like actually oil and gas is like getting pretty cheap.

Like it should be valued a little higher. And I got into some of those trades and then within like a month, I was like, I, I can't do this. I can't, uh, you know, I can't be invested in the oil and gas to be clear. There was nothing. With the funeral home was they provided a re a valuable service and nothing wrong with that, or even like investing in them at all.

But I like specifically bought this for a trade. Once it became evident that like COVID was going to be really, really bad and that, you know, if you want to do that great. I, but my conscious caught up to me and I was like, I can't, I can't, I can't do this. So, uh, anyway, that's my quick story. I'm on sci real fast before our first guest ABI want to do a crypto update.

Alright. Uh, it is, uh, mostly right here on the screen, Bitcoin down 1.6% eith down for call at 1.5%, uh, more green than red. And let's go to the Bitcoin chart here. Uh, you know what though? Today's candle doesn't actually look that. Right. If you can see there, uh, the, the, the lower wick is, is, is huge, right?

It means we're well off the low of the day. Uh, so this is actually not like the, I mean, we, we did break below whatever kind of support that was. What, what does that forty forty two call the high 40 twos, but we're worried back there now. So, um, you know, buying the dip has worked for today, at least in Bitcoin, not so much this week, but certainly for today.

Um, but we are, we are below that range from a company as they go in theory. Um, kind of the same story, right? These charts were identical. Um, but the difference is that, uh, actually, no, there really is. No, there's no difference here. It's the same story, right? At what I have support around the $3,000 area, I wanted to talk about sushi, sushi swap as well.

I dunno if you saw this one, um, bought this thing, uh, has gotten creamed, uh, past how many days is that? Past week, past week gotten creamed, uh, from 16 to below 10 narrower at 10 20 now. And then, so I wanted to bring that up because it is a. Uh, there's a reason why I wanted to bring this up and I forget why.

W w what's it like the worst performer of the day? No, it wasn't what it was. Uh, I forgot why I think, I, I think I saw this yesterday, uh, that that bar stood out to me. And then avalanche, I don't know if you're watching an avalanche, uh, tip of the hat to anyone who has the stomach for this, because this thing is really moving it is it is your best performing crypto, at least on corn market cap, uh, of the last.

I think, but it's in that, within that month, you've had multiple days of like serious, serious pain. So hats off to, I mean, like when we look at today in avalanche, right? We're we are on our way to, to regaining all of yesterday's losses. Uh, so if this is you tip of the hat, I can't stomach this, but, but, uh, This is what cryptos for right is for volatiles stuff.

And that's what, that's what, that's what this is. Uh, if anything, Bitcoin and ether have, have, uh, gone correlation straight to the overall market to the stock market here, right? Uh, like, like these charts, maybe not like all the way back here, but if you look at the last couple of days in Bitcoin, there's correlates to the stock market.

So. Yeah. I mean so much for that being a hedge, but, um, I'm still long Bitcoin, Ethereum Cardona, Solano, not Cardona Solano. Um, yeah, AB and just alone. Yeah. I mean, I am holding strong. My theory I'm right now. Um, kind of same thing I was talking about with FUBU. If it continues to drop, I might, uh, average my costs in, at a lower price, but, um, I think we're at a, at a pretty, you know, significant line in the sand right here, Spencer with Ethereum, I think will either.

Uh, you know, see it, hold these levels and bounce again. Or if it continues to fall, we could see it drop all the way down to that $2,600 inch. I think I'm sort of stuck in now. It's like, do I want to buy more? That's sort of my only question is, do you, what do I, or do I not want to buy more? I don't actually even know where my cost basis, you know what?

I have a bone to pick, um, when I opened my crypto account whatever year ago, or whenever I did that, um, I just picked Coinbase because. Frankly, I just picked out of the hat and, uh, you can't see your cost basis on Coinbase. What's up with that? I don't actually remember where I bought. I think I bought a theme around here, honestly.

Um, so, so anyway, I don't really know where I, where I bought out, but my point was, do I buy more or do I not? But I don't have the very large exposure. I have a very minimal exposure to crypto. I've got thing I through like between all my crypto is I, my cost basis is probably like. I dunno. I think I threw probably like three, $4,000 in it.

So not, not a ton, but do I want to buy more here or do I not AB I think we'll wait, Spencer. I think we'll wait. Um, you know, to see what happens throughout the rest of this week. Okay. You say, wait, how happy he says you can, or maybe I just don't know how to use corn base, but I, I swear, I've looked at corn base and you, you, you can't see.

Your whatever, moving on. I don't care. Um, okay. Crypto update brought to you by Voyager. Everyone. Get $50 in Bitcoin for free. Download the Voyager app funding with a hundred dollars. Make your first trade use. The code is zing that's Z I N G. And that'll get you $50 in free Bitcoin. Okay. Uh, our first guest is not here AB I know I'm.

Doing some reach out right now to make sure everything is AB is doing some reaching out our 1230 guests. I see. In the green room or the blue room. I don't know what color the room has been. Our 1230 guest is here. Uh, so we're looking forward to talking with Richard MacPherson at 1230, uh, and waiting for idea Nomics, uh, CRO chief revenue officer Kristin Helsel at, um, at now, uh, whenever she.

I want to talk to hurricanes. I really want to get her take on like what she thinks goes on with like their stock. Cause I don't, I IDX is one of the most widely held stocks like Robin hood. And I, I just wouldn't want her to take on that. Um, because I don't really, not that I have anything against the company, but I.

You know, it's a seemingly random, random company to be, uh, so widely held. So, uh, what I'd love to get Kristen on. If she, if she wants to join us today, then if not, we're going to be, uh, moving right along. Uh, one of the things we'll want to get mentioned also, before I forgot, before it got away from me is if you look at it like a heat map today or a.

Whatever, uh, a watch list and, you know, they just show you what I'm talking about. Okay. I put up a watch list today of like overall market, right? Every sector, every major index, every five larger stocks, it's all green. Right. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Because it doesn't account for, um, how we've really behaved from the open, this only really accounts for how we've behaved from yesterday's clothes.

So all that being said, I pull up a chart of the spy and my, my, my take here on the, on the whole market is whatever happens from three 30 to four o'clock today is w is the direction I think we're, we're gonna. So if we re, if we basically, if we sell off into the clothes, I'm, I'm short term bearish, I'm bearish for the week.

I'm buried for the rest of the month. Um, maybe even in Stocktober, if we don't sell off until the close, but we actually hold these gains, then color me bullish for the week. Paul was for September. Both for the rest of the year. Um, but I do think it's important. I don't, I still have no idea what happened into the clothes yesterday.

If anyone has any ideas. Uh, I know there is some, some talk about some, some, some options buying, but, but that rally into the close yesterday was, was something something's fierce. And my take is whatever happens in the last half hour of the day. That's where. I don't know if you have a take on that. Um, yeah.

Sorry. I'm working with a, I R idea. I our team try and get, uh, get Kristen on. Um, no, Roger says she's too busy for us. She's too busy counter grant money. That may be true. Neuro Roger, that may be true. We've we've been blown off before. I've been blown off many times. I've done many, many interviews. I'm hosting many shows for Benzinga and I've been blown off more times than I, uh, than I than I care to count.

So it wouldn't be the first time and it probably won't be the last, I want a, uh, to do a quick survey in the chat. A one, if you are Jay Ray says it's not a constant call. Okay. J. I want to do a survey in the chat one, if you're a, what's called through the end of the month, if few of the end of September, do we close September in the spy higher or lower than 4 36, where, which is where we are right now.

Wonder if he close higher to close lower? That's what I want to know. One of your bullets too. If you're married.

That's what I got to know biggest so far. I mean, we, yeah, we gave back a nice track of gains and the, the, the threats of pre-market and, and, and for the first hour of today, but it's been a nice rally from the, in the last hour and a half. I'm seeing, oh, I'm seeing mixes. I'm seeing, I'm mostly ones, some twos though, one and a half and cow, you can't be both actually.

All right. Let's think it's split 50, 50 Cameron doll. W w w w what is three? What is three means? But it wasn't even on the menu. I will remind you. I do have an active bet with Joel Al cannon, that we will see a new, all time high at some point before the end of the year. It's an active bet. I gave him amazing eyes.

I gave him like five to one odds that we're gonna get a new all-time high at some point between now and the end of the year. Um, so unchanged. All right. One important five means unchanged. Wow. That's a lukewarm take. If I ever heard one. Alright, fine. Cam Cameron knows betting on for the next nine days.

Have fun with that one. I'm doing I'm just kidding. Okay. Well, let's go to the scanner. Benzinga pro uh, we got a couple minutes before our guests here. Uh, see what jumps out to us. And again, this is why I love looking at movers from the open, not from the clothes, because from the clothes, I'm sorry. From the, yeah, from the clothes, the move is distorted by whatever happened.

And I want to know what's volatile from the open discovery dis CB. This thing is a, it's a high flyer, super vault tile. This w this is the one that does crazy things, right. It's not liquid at all. Forget that. I don't want to look at that stock. It's no, it's no liquidity. Huge spreads. Forget that. Um, what else jumps out to me?

Upside or downside? Uh, nothing really. Oh my gosh. Again, with the Dutch brothers, have you seen the stock? Because the stock look at this coffee company, I got to know where, uh, I'm gonna ask Richard, if he's ever had this, when he comes on this Dutch brothers coffee, they must be the, they must have the best coffee in the world.

Uh, it was trading lower at one point today to came back. Um, no, uh, Tim ID omics will be on, we do have our guests here, so Spencer, without further ado, let's get. Get access to actual news and market research with all the information you need to invest smarter and profit faster. Start your free trial [email protected].

Hey, nice intro, Aaron, Bruce. Thank you. We may. Yeah, how's it going, Kristen? Thank you for joining us on, on Ben power hour today. Thank you for taking time out of your, uh, you know, busy Tuesday to join us. Thrilled to be here. Hi guys. Um, so go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say Kristen real quick. Before we get into some specific questions about.

Um, the company, you just want to give a brief overview of ID and omics for our audience, that some of some of the, uh, audience may not be familiar. Sure. We're a publicly traded on NASDAQ under IDE acts, headquartered in, uh, New York city and, uh, really in the fleet, uh, electrification. So, uh, we've, uh, put together a company that's really focused on this transition from internal combustion engines to fleet electrification, and we're doing it on a global basis.

Uh, Kristen, I know you guys, you guys don't necessarily control this, but do you have any idea as to why your stock is so volatile and so, so wild, so widely held among retailers. I think it's, uh, our leader Alf Corp, who has been, uh, you know, who really, I think resonates with the retail investor community.

And I think, you know, he's been putting his vision out there and, uh, has been really heavily supported, which is something we really love you. I did I'll mix does a lot of investing. You guys do a lot of investing in, in other, in smaller Evie companies. Can you tell us about sort of like that, that process?

What do you look for? When you're. Cause I imagine your thought process, it should not, is not that or should not be that be dissimilar to my thought process when I'm looking at like an UV company that I want to buy stock and whatever. Right. So like, what is your thought process behind some, like your, your investments?

Sure. We look for three. Tech that we really believe in that we think is transformational and will also hold up in the future. So that's really the very first thing. We also look for companies that have referenceable customers. We're not, we're not necessarily talking to a lot of people who have. You know, really thought through the product and gotten it deployed.

And then we're looking for a strong leadership team because, you know, we work with those teams to grow these companies and we want to make sure that all those pieces are in place. And so when you look at the acquisitions we've made like waive our inductive charging company, you know, it has a strong leadership team in place.

It has a really strong CEO and Erin Gilmore. A strong CTO, you know, a really strong leadership team below that we have, uh, electric tractor company select track. And again, we put a, an industry leading tractor specialist of Manny. I are there to lead that team and he's assembling an amazing group. So that's, that's really how we go to market with these companies.

And, and we really, uh, are confident that that's going to be what makes them successful. What do you make of just the. Evie market environment. It's been a really, really wild year. I mean, it really last year, too, especially the back half of last year EVs were so in favor and even the, you know, the first part of this year too.

And a lot of that favor has come off in, you know, in the last six, seven months. Has that impacted your business at all? This is a long-term play. I did Evie infrastructure. Uh, I was with another company and we launched with the leaf in 2009. And we thought the Evie revolution was going to happen then. And you know, flash forward, it's 2021.

It's still going to happen. I think people have to be patient. You know, it is going to take some time. This isn't going to be something that happens, you know, tomorrow or next week. But if you look over the next couple of years, I can already, you know, the vehicles are coming. The fleet vehicles are coming, the passenger vehicles.

This is a transition that we're going to make it's, you know, gonna, you know, not only take time, but you also have to think about the future. What's beyond what we have today in terms of charging. Where's the future going? And that's where products like Waverly. Got it. Um, so, so Kristen, going back to, you know, the retail traders, just being, um, you know, kind of a namerd with the ID Nomics stock, what do you think, you know, w was the retail trader, was that kind of the reason behind the stocks, you know, rapid rise back in early February of 20, 20 up to $5, um, or were there other factors kind of driving that stock.

I think there were a lot of things. I mean, I think that, you know, there was a lot of talk even then about an infrastructure package. There was, you know, a lot of, uh, you know, talk about the climate, you know, it, I mean, it is going to be volatile, I think for years to come, but we love, love, love our retail traders and, uh, are, you know, are excited about the support that they give ID Nomics, number one, but, you know, number two, we see a lot more, you know, of the.

Companies coming in and listen to this space. And, you know, I think that, uh, that may smooth things out in the next, I dunno, a couple of years, but until then, you know, um, you know, it's going to be up and down. You know, the Biden infrastructure plan is on again, off again on again, off again. And you know, those kinds of things really affected.

Uh, ID Nomics has, uh, offices or subsidiary or facility in China, correct? Um, I I'm, I'm just curious how that's going. There is some subjective, some, some controversy last year. Uh, you had some, some short sellers, uh, come out against you guys, specifically for that facility. Uh, but now I'm not just referring to that.

I'm referring to just like. Geopolitical like stuff going on between the us and China. So like w w w can you update us on what's going on over there and how that's going? Yeah. We have a great leader, Larry wrong, who leads the China team? Uh it's uh, you know, they're really doing a lot to finance, like ride sharing EVs, and, you know, they're really in the EDI space as well.

And while, you know, that is a part of our business. The majority of our business is in north America right now, and a little bit in Europe. And of course Asia, where we have our tree electric bikes. So, you know, it's, you know, we see ourselves now as a global global company with a presence in China. And when you say you're a business, you're really you're you mean just B to B Evie and infrastructure.

Type things, electrification of, of fleets, et cetera, et cetera, B E V infrastructure, but also the things we've announced like via the, uh, you know, the, uh, uh, class two to class six, a skateboard technology delivery last mile and mid mile delivery, a van that we, uh, you know, just, uh, Now that that's a deal we've signed, that's not closed yet, but we're very excited about that product, you know, energy co, which is actually making motorcycles and selling them around the world.

You know, that's another, I mean, so we, we not only have the, if a customer comes to us, we certainly have the infrastructure technology, but we also have the vehicle knowledge and technology. And we're uniting that around things like energy storage and renewables, so that when somebody comes to us and says, how am I going to Tran?

You know, how am I going to move from my internal combustion engine? How do I move my fleet to a transfer? You know, electrified transportation. We can provide the solution, start to finish. And that's where we really think not only, you know, our vision about, you know, the infrastructure, but that glue holding it together.

That's where we think we're really differentiated and where we're going to make it easy for our customer to make that transition. We can help them do that. Th there there's some questions from our chat actually, AB if I could just jump in for one second and maybe we will have to get Alfond Rahul, but there's some questions from our chat.

Uh, w w w about there's a few here that I can't, I can't get to all of them. Okay. Let's just do this one from, uh, from Anthony, um, w regarding revenue, uh, do you have, uh, some, uh, time when a guidance as to when you, when you guys projected. Yeah, I'm certainly not going to give any guidance about the future, but, you know, we've had two of the, well, the two best quarters we've ever had in Q1 and Q2.

And while we do think that this is an up and down situation, you know, we're, we're, I think on a, you know, a very good glide path. All of our, uh, individual businesses, especially in the mobility side are doing really well. You know, today we just took a big PO for our waves of cities. So we're very excited about what the future brings and, you know, think that as this market opens up, we're going to be at the forefront of it.

Um, and then I'm sitting in another question to chat about contracts. Um, so, you know, you mentioned the, the Biden administration earlier, you currently work in, um, I'm trying to get any government contracts to try to like transform some, some of these fleets to electric vehicles or anything like that. We certainly are.

I mean, we work on contracts at the national level. We're certainly working at the state level. We're working with individual utilities, you know, we're responding to RFPs for, you know, infrastructure and charging projects. You know, we just responded to an RFP where we're sort of uniting our mobility and our in our capital side where we're saying that we'll not only put in the transportation, but do it as.

So in this particular case, it's a huge municipality where they're looking at trying to electrify all of their fleets. So we would put in the charging infrastructure and then you start mobility side or our capital side to offer that as a service so that the municipality doesn't have to pay for it all at once.

They can pay for it on a monthly. Got it. That's exciting. Last one, um, from the chat and we'll wrap up today, um, is ID and omics done kind of raising money, at least in the short term, you know, uh, we have a lot of cash in the bank and, uh, we, our plan is to put that to good use around all of the businesses that I just mentioned.

And, you know, we're really excited about what the future is, but we always keep an eye on what's coming next and never take our eye off that ball. Got it. All right, Kristen. Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy Tuesday to join us on the Benzinga power hour. Um, we'd love to have you or Al for you and Alf both on together, you know, in the future.

Anytime the company has some exciting updates, that'd be great. This is the lot of fun. Thank you guys. Of course. All right. Uh, we're running behind. We got to get our next guest on he's here. He's been here, Richard MacPherson, the CEO of to see let's get Richard ed, you know what let's just call him and me to see.

Cause that's what that's that's that's his name upon this green Richard. And how are we doing today? Excellent. Uh, okay. Before I get to, um, uh, what you guys do and, and all that, uh, there was, there was a headline in this morning, Richard, uh, tell us what they have said, but more importantly, what it means. So the headline made notice of a new settlement agreement, a licensing agreement that we had with a utility.

Um, and it's one of many that we expect to come down the pipe in the next while as we move forward to monetize the IP position that we have across the. Um, with folks that are utilizing our technologies. So sit back up for a second and me to see what you guys do. As I understand it is you provide a technology for, um, coal fired power plants to safely dispose of mercury mercury emissions.

Is that, is that right? That's pretty accurate. Yes that's. Okay. So what, what is the market for that? It looks very good, actually. Um, unusually expected the, uh, output of coal-fired plants is rising considerably this year and expected to stay, uh, as compared to the last few years. Um, for the next few years, that's mainly because of the increase in natural gas and the folks running coal plants more than we're excited.

For us, that means that there's lots of initiatives to be captured. And that's why we're busier this year than in previous years. How much of a electricity in the U S do you know that comes from coal? It's about 23 to 24%. This year expected to stay that way over the next three to five. What about longer expected to say that way, that way into the future, probably for the next five to 10 years.

However, it's more difficult to project that what you'll see is some consolidation of some of the smaller plants and the larger plant staying open. After these smaller plants are shuttered to pick up the amount of output that's necessary to stay in that 23, 20 4% range of the total grid. At this point?

Yes, we're our core business is in the capturing of worker emissions from coal fire plants. So that is our main business. We expected to stay strong because of. Output that's underway. Now, are there any new regulations that anyone in this space should know about? I know things are always changing with regards to environmental emissions and the like, or any, any new regulations that that investors should, should perhaps know about in this space.

No, at this time it's pretty much. Uh, in stone, the regulations are very tough. Um, they don't look to be going anywhere, so it, and everybody's up to speed meeting them. So it's pretty much expected that things will stay as they are for the foreseeable future. Uh, and do you have, so right now you, uh, uh, uh, to see you guys co basically collect, uh, mercury emissions, are there plans to broaden that to other, other, other types of, um, environmental, uh, emissions?

Um, actually our strength and our skillset is in a field called Kimmy store. Okay. That's, that's the know how that led us to, um, be able to create and introduce this technology across the fleet, which a very significant part of the fleet utilize our technology. So over the past couple of years, while we backed up and tried to from an IP point of view, monetize all of the adoption that's taken place, we also started to focus on wastewater remediation.

And the extraction of rare elements from the coal Ash, um, side of the power plant industry. We've been very active in that and are working and making some great progress in that. Richard MacPherson is the CEO of M E to see environmental again. Uh, any company that tries to, uh, uh, make the environment better.

Good in my book. So keep doing what you're doing and, uh, thanks for joining us on the thyroid. My pleasure. Thank you guys. Get access to actual news and market research with all the information you need to invest smarter and profit faster. Start your free trial [email protected]. Former CEO of octagon asset management meet.

Um, before we talk about it, like to stand on an old good work you're doing there, I got to get your thoughts on this market. Where are you right now? I, I I'm the end of the world or things are better than ever scale. It's a very good question. I think the, um, the market is obviously very frothy. Uh, we actually don't trade equities.

We focused on trade finance and finance. We. Producers processors exporters' importers of all sorts of different goods with a distinct focus on physical bulk commodities. So in our world, things are roaring. It's just a phenomenal time right now, largely because there's a lack of liquidity by. So these companies are starved for financing in order to make the trades happen.

But the demand for global trade is, is just booming. And as I'm sure you've seen with the freight markets being with what's going on, that it's just the congestion, the, the amount of activity is just extraordinary. So these are very unusual times. So for. Despite what's happening in the equity markets and in the fixed income markets, we've got a, a tremendous opportunity ahead of us right now.

All I've seen here then is the pictures of the port of Los Angeles. And it's, it's like a traffic. It's crazy. I think Gaynor one container, the cost of bringing that container from China to the United States west coast, we needed a long beach LA area a year ago. It was about 1500, $2,000 today it's as high as $25,000.

Wow. It's just crazy. So how does this get fixed? Because we all know supply everyone's supply chains broke, right? Every economy is shut down and they reopened, it was a whole thing, but we're, we've now been reopened. Most of the global economy has been reopened for the better part of the majority of this year.

Right. I mean, how do these. Continue to supply chain problems. Do they just fix themselves? Well, you have to understand that the independent MC has cycles, right? So we've seen a taper and we've also seen a research back up. We've seen that happen in China and Thailand, Malaysia, and all throughout south these stages.

So while things have calmed down here, um, although you can argue that they're on the upswing again. Uh, we've seen a, a number of port shut down in China, so that's contributed to the backlog and the issues. So, um, you've got ports that are operating at half capacity because of COVID restrictions and separation requirements.

We know there are a number of different factors. It'll take probably a good three to six months to get to some point where it starts clearing, but we could see these kind of congested, uh, logistics issues sustained for another 16 and 12. I'm afraid to say,

oh my goodness, what, what, what do you think? Like our audience is mostly retail investors that trade stocks and stuff. Do you think there are any opportunities out there to kind of, um, play this problem? That's out there right now? You know, there, there are different ways to play it. I mean, as an example, we finance bulk commodities, but with the, with the pandemic, Um, when everyone had to go on to home arrest is what I call it.

We haven't shut down. Right. And so the demand for fitness equipment went through the. So we saw, um, you know, issues where you could not find dumbbells at any stores you wanted to buy dumbbells or kettlebells, or, you know, uh, Olympic weights. You just couldn't find them on the shelves of any of the big retailers.

So we got behind a fitness equipment company. It's actually a startup called true grit fitness, and they went from zero to almost a hundred million in sales and in the span of about eight to 12 months, just incredible. So there are ways if you think about it, What's the, the ebbing and flowing in the market, you know, we're, we're kind of tracking things cycles always occurred.

So when, when you have a shortage of supply, parties will come in to fill that shortage. And what that'll translate to is eventually an oversupply. So you want to kind of, if you're a trader and you find the market you're going to have no, no trend is a straight line, right? You don't have a market scope, perfectly perfect.

A straight line it's usually at, up and down. Um, kind of cycle. So you, you just have to follow things and track kind of where overbuying is happening. You know, we're a shortage occurs and kind of try to take a contrarian view. I'm very much about the markets are very efficient, but they don't think too far ahead.

And so if you're, you know, if you're a contrarian you'll end up, I think doing well. That's why relative value trading in Paris trading makes a lot of sense if you're, if you understand that that's. Um, I could not agree more immediate. We've talked about Paris training and really has been trading more times than I can count.

So, uh, I'm still caught up on your previous comment though, six to six to 12 months. So that, that, that obviously includes this holiday season, right? I mean, that's. Th th the store is all the big box retailers are having a very difficult time getting the product on the shelves. So we're going to see price inflation.

There's no question about it because the suppliers can't sustain this kind of a freight cost. They can't eat that, so they're not passing it on. And so that's going to be passed onto the consumer. So we're likely to see. Uh, inflation really rear its ugly head we're seeing already, but I think it's going to be even further exacerbated over the next three to six months.

So, so since you, you said it not me. So I want to bring up inflation just for a second. And I know this is a really, really, really hard question. How much of the inflation that we're seeing is just a result of mass ops supply chains that will naturally fix itself, as you say, in the next six to 12. Well, the problem is once it goes up, it's hard to kind of deflate it.

Cause when companies get used to charging the high rate, they want to continue to do stuff. Uh, we have two things. We've got up to see the price inflation on, on the goods, in the logistics, but you also have labor costs and inflation work companies and restaurants. They just can't get the employees in nobody's wants to work.

And so in order to get them in, they're having to pay a higher wage. To draw the employees and that's, again, it's a hard thing to resell lower. So, um, we're in a grand unusual situation that could be, um, contributor to tremendous volatility over the next 12. Just be smart about how you play your cards. Um, here's another, maybe a, maybe a dumber question, but how do I as a consumer, is there any way for me to like, help things get, do I just not to knock shop online?

I just have to like, like, like how do I help the situation? How can we all help the situation? Well, the easy one is pray.

We need all the help we can get, but I think, um, you know, it's a hard, it's a hard thing to do. I think if you, uh, that's, that's a question I need to need to give more thought to that's fair. That's fair. I want to ask you about a leg to stand on. Uh, tell us about that. Tell us the work that you do. Sure. So I like to stand on is a nonprofit, a registered 5 0 1 C3 based in New York city.

We've been around for almost 20 years. Uh, we have one. Objective. And that is to help children in developing countries that have limb disabilities. So these are children that were born with that arms or legs, where they were born with deformed arms and legs, or they might've had a cancer that led to an amputation, or it might've been a traumatic accident led to an amputation or a, um, you know, severely disabled.

We go on and provide free corrective surgery and artificial limits from the ages of birth until 18 years old. In fact, we actually have exceeded that up to 21 in certain cases, but, uh, we, we operate in, in, um, many different countries and we have project partners that are located in these countries that we have vented out.

We help provide the Lim kits and the other resources they need include including capital they needed in order to provide these service. Is this all over the world or is it, is it mostly in certain kinds of, well, it's all over the world. We're just, uh, we're Demandbase. So project partners will hear about us and come to us and say, we have a need for helping these hundred and 50 or 300 children, whatever it is, we'll go and do an onsite due diligence to vet the math, to make sure they're a real organization that they've got experience, uh, that they're credible, that they're properly registered and licensed.

That they, um, have policies and procedures in place that ensure that the treatments are being done the right way. Uh, we just can't afford to get involved with any organization. That's, that's kind of cutting corners are likely to get in trouble, um, because for us there's no, no upside in that. So we do as much due diligence on a project partner, as we do on a company that we fund out of October.

Um, but the goal is really to develop a long-term partnership where we are the fuel that goes into their engine to provide the services and there's accountability. So each, each program partner will give us their budget and their list of children. They want to help, and we will allocate a certain amount of product to that product.

Meaning Lim kits. We have a Joshi Lim kit where we design our own prosthetic limb that we have manufactured at a very, very low cost. And we deliver those to the project partner. As a donation in kind, we also donate wheelchairs and other types of mobility aids. Um, so we get through each patient and we get a patient intake form with a before picture and after picture and all the invoices to make sure that the work that was said would be done, was done.

How can. So there are all sorts of ways to get involved. We have our website, which you've got up there. Uh, the domain name is, is the acronym for a leg to stand up on.org. So it's a L T S o.org. You can go there and you can obviously donate money. You can donate time. If you have ideas where we would love people to a whole host events.

Um, it's a great way to, to, to expose your children, to how lucky they are to have all their limb, uh, Faculties and the ability to play sports and to run and to, to work and to walk to school and to ride bicycles. So, um, we were very open in terms of how people want to support us. If you have ideas on, uh, hosting an event, we have events of our own.

We have our biggest of the year called Rocktober Fest on October 21st. It's going to be a virtual event. Our technology partners at OCC, they're hosting this, which is basically like an online conference or an online event. They're fantastic. We just had our first, last year and it was a tremendous success.

We encourage you to come out and check it out. But, um, if you go to our website, you can see how you can donate or, or contribute. And we, we, um, we're not, we're not greedy. We'll take any help we can get. So our goal is just to help as many children as we can every year. So I'm curious about, I guess the kind of connection.

Um, coming from a finance background, uh, into a leg to stand on. And how do you try to kind of connect, you know, your context in the finance industry, uh, to this charitable cause it's a good question. So. At octagon, we do the vast majority of our work in emerging markets. So I'm traveling down to Latin America, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and you can't help.

But to see these children, you know, they just don't have the ambulatory services or the health systems like we have in the west. So they're not getting treated and you can't help, but have your heart go out to them. And you see that they're already battling a very large mountain to climb in if they're based in emerging countries.

So if they don't have their limbs. They're actually, um, treated very poorly. In many cases, children can be abandoned or orphaned because the parents view the child with the disability is. As a, as a black mark. And so they're embarrassed by it. They think it's at that kind of omen. So they, they don't want to have that exposure and don't want to be, uh, deemed to be a sinful family because they had a child with disability.

So for us, it's a very important thing to be able to give back. And this is the way that we can do that and how we connect the dots with our, um, kind of peers in the Indian. I'm a closet musician. I play the drums and the guitar. And I worked also late hours because we have Asia starting, you know, when we closed down.

And so in my office, in New York, I had a drum set and guitars and, uh, PA systems and, uh, in a bar and we would have people over after hours to Jan and I used to have investors come in. In fact, when we started our first band called the subscribers, is that. Um, our investors at Lazard asset management came in to interview us and conduct due diligence.

They saw all the musical equipment and after we were done doing all the, the, the, you know, shop talk, um, a comment was made about, you know, I play guitar. Why don't we get together and jam? So we started getting together and, uh, this gentleman, his name was Chris Cheesman, and we'd come over and we'd, uh, play some songs.

And we laughed about our, our lack of, or our lack of skills and how much we wanted to improve. The idea came up about why not, uh, hosting events, where we play in front of an audience of our peers to raise money for like stand up. So we rented out the bar at the Chelsea hotel in New York city, and we sent out emails to all of our closest friends in the hedge fund world.

We had to sell our crap. And after the show, people came up and said, you know, that was amazing. And, uh, I played a band or I'm a drummer, I'm a bass player. I play the kazoo and, and, um, you know, soon enough we had all these people expressing interest to get behind it. So we ended up having our first event while hedge fund Rocktober Fest at the planet, Hollywood in times square.

And again, we had a sell out crowd and people had a tremendous time and it's just sort of taken on a life of its own. So it's been a lot of fun to see the industry kind of get behind. So, so last year, uh, you know, the Rocktober Fest, you mentioned you had to bring it virtual, um, this year, again, you know, doing virtual.

So you, is, are you performing with your band as, as part of the Rocktober Fest? I am not this year, but we've got great bands that have been involved, uh, the alcohol scars and cause and all these great bands had them with us for, you know, many, many years in some cases since the very first show. So. The, the demand to be in the program is so great that it becomes a competition.

Whoever can raise the most money, gets the seat at the table and the top five are sort of led in. And then between them, whoever raises the most money gets to pick their place slot during the night. So, um, I've kinda said I've let all the, these huge stars performing and not really bore everyone. Musical talents or lack thereof.

Uh, we have someone on the Benzinga team, uh, Brent Slava, who he's, he's kind of a closet DJ. So he does, um, you know, so if you, if you want to mix it up from rock and have a nice DJ set in there, let me know we can arrange that. Um, and then, so I also wanted to ask about the, uh, you know, kind of, there's like a game, right?

A stock-picking game involved in the, in the October Fest this year. Um, we have these, uh, It's a way to raise money. It's a fantastic organization that we work with that, um, essentially allows you to, to, uh, pick stocks and the ones that do the best will win and it provides a donation to a leg to stand on.

So it's, um, uh, it's kind of a fun activity for those that are involved. You can go into our website. If you look at the event, I think you're on it right now. You're you're just going through the sponsored. Um, but you can learn more about the show and all the different kind of features that we're offering and encourage you to go to a leg to stand on and click on Rocktober Fest in the top banner, which we're where you're at right now.

Um, yeah, so you can click here, see all the different bands that are, um, you know, participate in. Um, and yeah, I mean, I think this is great, cause I think in the finance world, Um, maybe, you know, some companies or funds could be doing a little bit more on the charitable side. So I think it's great to see someone kind of take initiative and use those contacts to try to, um, you know, raise some money for, for a very good cause.

Well, we appreciate the support. It. It's an opportunity to see some, some people that normally were, uh, their pinstripe suits and, uh, you know, they, they, they strip the suits off and fill on the guitar and it's pretty amazing to see how good these bands are. So I, I can't encourage you strongly enough to come out and watch the show on October 21st.

Well, we're excited for it. I know. Keep me apprised of what's going on with the competition, the stock picking game, because I know, uh, we here at Benzinga once, uh, offer. Help kind of beef up the prize. I think we're going to offer a quarter three free months free of Benzinga pro, which is about a, you know, a $400 value.

Um, so, so we're excited to participate as well. Yeah. We're grateful depending, and you guys are fantastic. Uh, appreciate you having us on and, uh, sharing the word about the organization and the event. So thank you very much. Uh, and, and we, so let me get this straight. So it's a virtual event. Um, but I know maybe like next year, once it's in person, there's going to be one in New York, London, and Chicago.

Yep. We have in those three locations, but with the pandemic, we had to obviously move to a more benign than you, which is online. We actually were really surprised about how well. The event of last year and the praise that we got back from all the attendees with super. So we're excited for a good, uh, online event this year station.

And it's fun because you can have watch parties and you can do it from home and interact with the events. You can shout out while the events going on and everybody sees what you're saying. So you actually get a chance to network and, and, um, you know, have your words shared with the world out there.

Become a little celebrity yourself this way, which is not as easy to do when you're at planet Hollywood or hard rock cafe or wherever we're having it. Beautiful. All right. Maybe we'll thank you for coming on the Benzinga power hour today. We're looking forward to the October vest. I'm dropping that link in the chat.

One more time for audience to go out there and check it out. Yeah. And we look forward to having you on again in the future, kind of to talk, you know, maybe, maybe again, as the, uh, conference or event is getting ready to ramp up. Um, but yeah. Thank you for taking time out of your Tuesday to join us. Thanks a lot.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/zingernation-power-hour/exclusive-content

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy