1 in 3 Americans Experienced Financial Fraud in the Past Year
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Here is KPP Financial Chief Executive Officer, Financial Advisor, Justin Klein. Good afternoon, fellow investors, and welcome back to InvestTalk. This is our Monday, March 10th, 2025 edition of InvestTalk, and it was quite the day on Wall Street.

Big red day, big red candle on the charts and some really big losses, especially for those big growth year names that are out there in the market. And very interesting times that we are living in. I've been talking about that. This is unlikely to be a year similar to last year or the year before. It's likely to be choppier, more risk.

it doesn't mean you can't be successful but it's just harder and you see that now and we're what about 10 11 weeks into the year and you've seen a lot of some upside as well as downside that the market can bring so we're here to help you meet these fresh challenges

and be prepared so that you aren't making rash emotional decisions. And volatility will do that to the best of us. It will bring out those emotions. And so our job here is to help quell those emotions in both directions. Things are great. It's probably not as rosy as you think it is. And when things are terrible, it's not as bad as you feel it is at a time. The reality is usually somewhere in the middle, the reversion to the mean.

And so we're in the process of forging a new path in markets, one that is just simply more volatile and has more challenges. And so we are here to provide insight as well as data so that you can better make decisions for yourself, bring back lessons to your own situation and apply them. It's not about getting that next tip or

you know hearing uh insights on uh a something your friend or cousin or brother made a bunch of money on

It's not about that. It's about the principles, sound principles of investing. And that's what we're here to help you with. Now, in just a bit, we're going to talk about today's market performance and run down the show topics. But as usual, we'll tackle this caller question first. Hey, Justin Luke. This is Aaron from Livermore, California. Just wanted to see what you think about Herc Holdings, H-R-I. Thank you.

Interesting. Herc Holdings, Malaysian-based holding company, provides cash, rebate, digital advertising, and payment solution business ecosystems. Okay, very interesting. $3.5 billion market cap. Let me pull this up on a couple of my systems here. HRI is the symbol. And the first thing that stands out to me is that it's a foreign company.

I'm liking a lot of those typically foreign names. And now this one has pulled back dramatically down 4.7% on the day. It's down, let's see, 50% from its 52 week high, which was at 246. Now we're at 125. Okay. Now it was trading at about market multiple then. Now it's trading at about 10 times forward looking earnings, which seems cheap.

I like that. Let me take a look at the, ooh, on an earnings basis, it looks cheap, but on a free cash flow basis, that's suddenly turning, well, it's been kind of vacillating between positive and negative for a while. And it's about flat line now, 16 million on a $3.5 billion market cap, has a lot of debt, $4 billion in debt. So that's my issue here is based on earnings projections, it looks cheap.

but based on cash flows it does not okay and then you have the chart reversing in such a dramatic way pull this up on a different system again i have a lot of systems here if you're watching on youtube you'll see most of my systems and yeah this has a lot more downside to go in my books i would pass on it i just don't like that momentum it's acting more like a growth name it looks cheap based on earnings but it's not cheap based on uh price to cash flow for example and for that reason

I'm out. I'm passing on perk. H-R-I. Now the clock is ticking. You're going to join the fun on our second annual InvestTalk Market Madness competition. Basketball is my sport, so this hits home with me. And we are entering March Madness in the NCAA tournament, but we figured we'd turn that into a fun educational game for our listeners. But you better hurry to enter. The deadline is March 17th.

and it tests your investment proficiency. And if you win, you can win $1,000 just by showing your investment skills. And here's how it works. Just like you would in March Madness, you will provide a series of stock matchups, or you are provided a series of stock matchups, and you predict the stocks that will outperform on that given day. And you get more points for each round. I believe the points double in each round.

And the bracket that racks up the most points, they win. They win that $1,000. Not if it's a tie, we'll split it. But yeah, that's how it's going to work.

now visit investtalk.com to join the fun and view additional details registration closes soon so get in on the game now i have a lot going a lot of ground to cover over the next 45 minutes or so and our main focus point is about scams how can people continue to fall for these scams and there's a few things you can do about it but there's some interesting stats that

give you some insights that maybe you think you can avoid it, but the reality is we're all going to get approached, pitched, some sort of a scam, and there are ways to avoid it. And you have to have that front of mind so that you have your ears perked up for these things. Because I get potential phishing emails, for example, on a regular basis. But

That's one way people can get scammed. And so you just have to be aware of it. So we'll dig into those numbers and more later in the show. Also, Tesla's fortunes have reversed in a dramatic way over the past couple of months. And we'll talk about what numbers they're seeing on the sales side and why that's hitting the stock so dramatically. We also have...

a rally in international stocks. So we'll talk about those numbers and why. And then dollar cost averaging. Is that the best way to get invested over time? We'll talk about a slight wrinkle

that can improve on that if that's a type of strategy you tend to go for. Now we're going into a short break. Actually, no, we're going to get to voice bank questions as well. One is on ShutterFlock as well as BWX Technologies. And then we also have questions that came in via the comment section over on our YouTube channel as well. Most importantly are your live calls at 888-99-CHART. But we're heading to a short break right now. And on the other side, I'll talk about today's market activity and then tackle more of your questions here on InvestTalk.

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Let's go take a look at the market today. It was a decidedly red day. You had the NASDAQ down 4%. You had the S&P down about 2.7% on the day and the Dow was down a little over 2% on the day.

And you had some big movers, Tesla down 15.4%, Netflix continues to be weak around 2.7%, Nvidia down 5%, Google down 4.6%, Meta down 4.4%, Apple, which had been kind of hanging in there of the Mag 7, was down nearly 5% on the day. And then you have that spread to Apple.

Walmart down four, Costco down three, Amazon down 2.3, and the banks, J.P. Morgan down four, Blackstone down nearly four, Microsoft, sorry, Morgan Stanley, not Microsoft, down 6.3, Goldman Sachs down five. So the big banks are struggling as well. And you're getting strength out of actually energy. Energy, Exxon was up 2.5% on the day.

Chevron down up about 0.8 and you had gains out of companies like Pepsi. Coke was up a little bit. Procter and Gamble up a little bit.

And a lot of the healthcare names outside of Eli Lilly, another one of those growth names. And so that's really what you're seeing here is those companies that are trading at high multiples, that have had that momentum, that are stuck in some sort of a growth ETF or tech ETF or something like that, those are the ones that are getting sold. And there's a lot of gamma hedging unwind here. So

We've talked before over the past couple of years how so much option activity in markets. And so what happens is there's what we call a gamma squeeze, which is there's so many people buying call options and the stock goes up. The dealers have to buy the underlying to hedge against losses if that stock continues to rise.

rise. And so it's reflexive in that way, where if the stocks go up, well, there's more option activity, more people betting on the upside, because everything's, they're rolling those gains into, you know, more bets to the upside. However, when that reverses, and there's a catalyst for that, all those dealers that were consistently what we call gamma hedging, they're now selling their underlying. And so what you're noticing here is it's not just

The big names, it's the popular names, it's the names where there's a lot of speculation around those and a lot of option activity around those. Those are coming off in a big, big way as well. And so, you know, the boring names, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, all up a little bit today, right? Pharma companies, all mostly up today except for, you know, Eli Lilly. Consumer Staples, you know, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, you know, boring names were up.

And that's really the economy are exciting names down huge, boring names. Now, part of this is the dividends that they pay and their bond proxies, right? The Johnson and Johnson's and AT&T's and Procter & Gamble's, et cetera. Those yields becoming a bit more attractive as their yields are more attractive as bond yields go down.

And you're starting to get the market expecting a Fed cut at the end of QT over the next few meetings. I think that's likely as well. You're also getting a reversal in the dollar. And that is now a negative for those foreign holders, which you had this American exceptionalism thing over the last decade.

year or so that's been on the cover of magazines and things like that. It's always a signal that maybe you should fade that. And that's kind of what's happening now. And when the dollar goes down, now those foreign investors are losing on the currency translation. So it's also making them rethink their positioning in U.S. stocks. And so there's this market rotation happening right now in a big, big, big way.

And it's very likely to continue. I've said this. The start was 2022. I thought 2023 and 2024 was more of a counter trend rally. And it was just a matter of when that was going to reverse. And I knew when it did, it would do so violently. And so,

That's what you're seeing now. Now we are getting to support levels around the S&P long term around 5500. We're at 56 now. So we're within an earshot of that. Would it surprise me to get a rally at some point this week?

Tomorrow is Tuesday. There's the term turnaround Tuesday. That often happens with Tuesdays, a day where you get a reversal. Could happen tomorrow. Could happen later in the week as well. Could happen not at all. OK, now this is something I talked about on Thursday. Sorry, on over the weekend. If you watch my market video on our YouTube channel, I said I said you have to get above Thursday's high with the rally on Friday. So you have to get above Thursday's high. Otherwise, you know, the path to least resistance continues to be lower.

And that's what you had today was that continued to follow through to the downside despite the bounce on Friday. Now the new line of the sand is today's high. And if you can get above today's high, then you have marked likely at least a near term bottom. So we'll be watching for that as we go through the week. Once again, definitely some potential more downside two, three, 4% from here, but likely some sort of bounce. But the market rotation to me is here.

And I don't think it's stopping. So it's definitely a tougher year. It doesn't mean there aren't opportunities. There are plenty. And you need to be prepared for that. And we will be with you along the way. Now we're moving into a break. Still to come, my focus point, more answers to your voicemail questions. And of course, you can call me right now, live at 888-99-CHART.

2025 rolls on and you might have some fresh questions for Justin or Luke. Call InvestTalk 888-99-CHART. Now let's go take a live call. James from New York looking at CVH. Actually, I was looking on CVE, Synovus Energy. Ah, got it. Okay, CVE. There we go. Okay, you own it or looking to buy it?

I mean, it's on my watch list, but I think that these energy names are really going through some bloody times. And I don't know if the case like Synovus, does it ever get to a point where it's a good time to buy or does it wither away to very little value?

Well, there's certainly risk in these names, but what you're actually seeing, what we like about some of the oil names is the fact that a lot of the bad news is already in. And what's underappreciated right now is actually shale growth is starting to turn negative in the U.S. It's kind of been the swing producer. And there's been a lack of investment. And obviously, prices haven't gotten to levels that are super would incentivize a lot of shale drilling. And

And I think overall that's positive. Now for Synovus, you have an extra layer of risk here, and that's the fact that it's a Canadian company and it does have some refining operations in the U S so that's a, it's a bit of a positive, but obviously the, the Trump tariffs and how much that applies to oil certainly could be a big factor in this. That's still kind of, you know, a lot up in the air. And, but with that,

comes a lot of opportunity in our mind that it's unlikely to be as bad as the market is expecting.

Because we need the oil. If you don't have Canadian oil and those prices go up, not only are tariffs in general inflationary, but adding oil on top of that, people will feel it. People feel the price of gasoline and oil more acutely than even tariffs on oil.

And TVs and electronic goods and things coming out of China. Right. And so this is the thing that will affect them most directly. Our refineries are designed to handle Canadian oil. And so we fade the idea that that will actually come to fruition if there are Canadian refineries.

tariffs, it'll likely be an exemption for oil to some degree, or at least a big reduction in our mind. And so that's why we think this is a good opportunity. But it's certainly not without its risks. That's for sure. So I like what you're looking at. Synovus is certainly one of the better Canadian oil names out there. But you have to understand that risks that. And that's your call, you know, whether or not Trump will certainly follow through with

the Canadian tariffs and keep that on oil as well. Thanks for the call. Now you probably already know that we receive finance and investment questions via the comment section over on our YouTube channel, and let's tackle one of those now.

Shawnee Boy says, I like the podcast, but really like seeing what you are looking at while you give your opinions on the YouTube channel. I'd love to hear your feedback on Lincoln Financial. I have a full position on now with the recent pullback from almost 40 to the mid-30s and would really like your thoughts on not only technicals, but the fundamentals as well. All right, looking at Lincoln. He said Lincoln Financial. I believe he was speaking of...

There is an insurance company, Lincoln National, I believe. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, because this is trading in the mid-30s. So that's LNC is the symbol. LNC is the symbol. This is Lincoln National. Now, it operates an insurance and a retirement business. Okay, so it has the annuity business, retirement planning, life insurance, group protection, et cetera. It also sells fixed and indexed annuities, etc.

and all of that the problem with this is that it's been in a pretty strong downtrend for a while let me pull up another chart here so if I look at the weekly it peaked out in 2021 at about 76 dollars per share went all the way down to about 20 dollars per share and now it's at 34. so it's been an uptrend uh it's it's since that bottom back in early 2023 but

you know everything's kind of been an uptrend so why was there that big down draft that's what worries me a bit is the longer term downtrend that you're seeing here they are taking their cash flow and buying back stock but the cash flow is turned

negative now it's rebounding a little bit but it's generally been negative for a while so you know i just think there's better opportunities out there in the insurance space i don't mind the business but i just don't like that longer term trend i just think there are better opportunities so i pass on lincoln national lincoln national not financial thanks for the question and for all of you head over to our youtube channel as you can see the charts and the data that we are looking at

Now we're heading into a quick break about halfway through the show, but that means there's plenty of time for you to give me a call. So if you have any questions on your mind, money related, don't hesitate to pick up the phone and give me a call at 888-99-CHART.

Justin Klein is here and ready to tackle your questions. Curious if you think it'd be better for me to let it go and spend money elsewhere. Well, first off, never take one man's opinion as gospel, including my own. InvestTalk is ready 24-7. When you give a recommendation on your show for a buy-in, like an entry point to buy a stock, if I already own it,

Should I go ahead and be looking to sell it? Don't forget to call InvestTalk, 888-99-CHART. Let me touch on a topic that most listeners need to understand. I want to talk about creating a trust and a will.

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Your questions are free. The answers are unbiased. Justin Klein is here now, ready to take your calls live. InvestTalk, 888-99-CHART.

Now, our main focus point today is the fact that one in three Americans experienced financial fraud in the past year. And this is a new bank rate financial fraud survey that 34% of Americans have experienced some sort of fraud or scam in the past 12 months. And 37% of those have actually lost money. Meaning that they didn't get refunded. They weren't made whole. They actually lost money. It's not a small amount.

You're talking roughly 10% of Americans. That's millions of people. Now, they're usually enticed by things like the fact that they won some sort of a prize, usually somebody posing as a recruiter, trying to gain information from them, some sort of investment scheme that they fell prey to.

Meme coins, that's a common one, especially for the younger cohort. And there's even threats of holding a loved one hostage. That one is common for the elderly. Now, more than two in three Americans have experienced financial scam or fraud at some point. I know I have. You have credit cards being used for things that you didn't spend on. Luckily,

They've all been credit card related. I was able to report them and they were, that was made whole. So I haven't lost any money luckily, but I can't say the same for millions and millions of Americans. Now, 30% of those that have experienced some sort of fraud or scam have seen more than one. So they see multiple types here. Now, more Americans that face a scam or fraud in the past 12 months said they did so because the person accessed

some sort of financial information, bank account, credit card, like I said, social security number. And about 57% said they were unsuccessful. So that's good. But that's where things can go arise. Okay. They are accessing some sort of personal information. And the worry here is twofold. There's a great wealth transfer. A lot of older boomers have money. And as they get

they advance in age they're more susceptible to financial fraud especially digitally where you know they they click on phishing scams they respond to people posing as somebody that they're not uh etc so that is elevating the risk here and then you also have the cfpb which looks to under the trump administration be gutted and you know it's a it's it's a

it's a body that will help prevent and call out consistent scams. And so the worry here is that it will embolden these scammers to put even more effort because the odds are good that they won't be watched as closely as they were before. Now, what's interesting about the statistics of the generations is that while

The older you are, the higher likelihood you have experienced some sort of a scam. But it's not dramatic. Boomers are at 73%, Gen X at 71%, Gen Z at 63%, and Millennials at 64%. So it kind of goes down based on age. But what's interesting is that Gen Z, the youngest cohort, 18 to 28, they're more likely to actually lose money. Basically, you know, they were...

They handed over money for what's often a phony service or a meme coin, for example. And so I think that's my biggest takeaway here from this is it's obvious that the older you are, the more susceptible you are to being targeted. But when it comes to actually handing over money, the younger generation will do it more often. Now, part of that could be, hey, the older you are, the more you've seen every little trick in the book, then you can avoid that.

But the reality here is that these younger Americans are maybe trying to get rich quicker and there's societal pressure because they should be more tech savvy to avoid these things. But the reality is they aren't. All right, let's go talk to Mark in San Diego. Let's talk about oil and energy.

Yes, I got about 10% of my overall portfolio in various ETFs and some big oil stocks, but I know they've been taking it on the chin for a while. So it's a good time to get out or just hang on for the long term. Well, I mean, hey, there's...

You're talking about get out in the short term, medium term, long, you know, could be more downside in the near term. Absolutely. I do think over the medium to long term, there's some great values that are out there. I don't think this green energy transition is going to be as fast as everyone thinks. The demand for oil is, I think, likely to stay relatively robust and continue to grow, especially when you have.

Outside of the financial crisis, global demand for oil continues to go up despite money flowing into green energy products, etc. So I'm bullish long term.

Okay. Yeah, because I got in back when they were giving away the oil barrels. It was so cheap years ago, but those massive games have slowly calmed down. So that's what I was wondering. Yeah. Well, usually when I get these calls, it's usually a good time to buy. Nobody calls worrying about selling when the price is up. So take with that what you will. Okay. Thank you. No problem.

Let's keep things moving and get a fresh question from the comment section over on our YouTube channel. Riverdog Savior says, do you see the market pullback as far as the last time we had a tariff war? This is actually a good point. Now, a lot of people might say, well, what tariff war? We didn't really have Trump in his first administration. He had a good market. Market was good. And that's certainly true. Market was generally positive.

but it wasn't always positive over those four years you had some pretty pretty significant pullbacks in the market over you know the 2016 to 2020 time frame okay now if i go pull back and pulling back the chart here the most significant one really was starting in the fall of 2018 into kind of year end that's pretty much the fourth quarter of 2018.

and that's when the s p went from about 2900 down to a low around 2400 so that was a 20 drop roughly in the s p could you get a 20 drop from the highs on the s p i don't see any reason why that's not possible there's no reason why that's not possible you know could you get back to the yen carry trade unwind lows last summer around 5100 once again i don't see any reason why that is impossible

So if I head over to a chart here, yeah, I mean the breakout high, the breakout high from 2021 on the S&P was right around 4,700. Okay. 4,700. So that would be about 900 points from here. And we've already gone down. What do we go down? We're at 50, 61.50 was our high. Now we're at 56 or so, 5,600. So we're about 5,000.

550 points from the high, about approaching that 10% level, it would not shock me. It would not shock me. Then does that mean are we going to go there right away? Probably not, right? There's usually bounces along the way. You know, the tariff situation, there's no real way to cut it besides it's bad for the economy in the short term. Now you could argue the long-term effects. You can argue that, you know, this is to restructure our economic system.

and bring more manufacturing home. That's certainly possible. Now, my take is it's going to take more than tariffs. You can't just rely on tariffs and think that that's automatically going to make production in the United States more competitive. I think it's going to take industrial policy. Think of the CHIPS Act and how that spurred a lot of investment in the United States. Look at Taiwan Semiconductor trying to build chips in Arizona, Ohio, etc. And

Obviously, I think most Americans would say that's great. But you see, there's a big problem with that is that it's not just about investments. It's all about talent. How many Americans know how to build chips, work in chip factories? Very few because we don't really produce chips here. So you need education to go along with it, to train workers. Tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands will need to be retrained.

coming out of industries that are old and tired and retrain them into these new industries and so this idea of producing more in the united states depending on the way you think about it you know it might be good but from a logistical standpoint it's going to take a long time which means in the near term tariffs are just a hit right a hit to the economy it's a tax and it's a regressive tax right because your own physical goods

and these are things that the lower income consumer is going to feel a lot more if you're upper middle class to wealthy your tv costs an extra 20 percent the gas you know your gas of the gas pump costs a little bit more the clothes on your you know that you go buy from the mall costs a little bit more you're not feeling that your disposable income is this high just eats into that a little bit but for the average consumer

it's a big tax and we know the average consumer is already struggling a bit more than they have been since covet started in order to pay their bills and so can we continue to the downside absolutely can it be 20 i see no reason why i can't and i would argue it'd probably be a little bit bigger because we're already starting from a little bit a little bit higher in excess with all these think of you know the nvidia's and a lot of the mag 7 trading at you know 40 50 60 times multiples

and so to get to a reasonable multiple maybe in the 20s or low 30s a lot of these have to go down 50 and they're a large part of the index so a broad 20 25 bear market would not shock me let's take a live call jeff from kansas looking at steel diamond dynamics stlv

Yeah. So I'm looking at the price of the stock. I know everything's been down lately, but it seems to be taking a bigger hit than a lot of the indexes. Trying to figure it out because steel prices are actually going the opposite direction. So it's not really, and I know that's a lot because of the tariffs, but I

But I don't know if we think that's short-term, long-term. And I know that has to do with politics and everything that goes along with that. But I'm just trying to make sense of why it's going in the opposite direction of the steel price. Well, you have to remember, first off, this is in the material sector. And historically, materials are just volatile. They're more volatile than the market. So naturally, you're going to get big moves in both directions.

now today it was down 4.4 certainly a rougher day but it's still above where it was its bottom back in the beginning of the year right still up on the year whereas the broad indices are down so it's outperforming it just has had a pretty hefty pullback over the past week or two but once again that should be expected you should expect that level of volatility if you want low volatility this is not where you want to be okay now you could judge that hey

Steel dynamics will benefit because of the protectionist policies of the Trump administration, etc. You could argue that. But then there's the counter that, once again, this is negative for the economy. And typically steel demand goes along with the economy. So maybe less competitive pressures, but more economic pressures. And so which one kind of wins out? I think the market is battling that right now and trying to figure that out.

So, you know, I don't love steel as a business. It's usually there's not a lot of competitive advantages here. But I've said for a long time, there are two clear standouts in the space, which are Steel Dynamics and Nucor. And this is one of them. Right. So, you know, if you want to own steel, you're in one of the better names. But understand that it's not without its volatility. It's still going to be very volatile because of the cyclical name. Thanks for the call, Jeff.

Now in the next InvestTalk, we'll look into this story. Three reasons a bear market could be looming. The potential for a bear market in 2025 is heightened by factors such as ongoing economic uncertainty, the impact of tariffs on global trade, and concerns over inflation and valuation levels in the stock market. That story tomorrow, but for now, I'm Justin Klein. I'm ready to take your calls at 888-99-CHART.

InvestTalk is ready 24-7 for your finance and investment questions. I'm hoping you'll give me your take on Ormat Technologies, O-R-A. Is it a good idea to sell your losses in a Roth IRA and just use whatever you have left to reinvest into better stocks? Don't forget to call InvestTalk, 888-99-CHART.

Every investor is working to build a secure financial future. How they get there and when they get there, that depends on many factors. The more you learn about how the market works, the better your chances for success. So don't forget to call InvestTalk, 888-99-CHART.

Hi, this is Duncan from New York. Thank you for all that you do. I am calling on stock ticker slash ETF EUAD. Select stocks, Europe, aerospace. Reason why I'm looking into this is because, well, if America is coming out of the assistance for helping Ukraine,

Europe is supposed to step it up. And I think I just read that Europe is putting about like $800 billion into more manufacturing for defense. So one, would this make sense? Two, I bought some. I'm thinking about buying more. This is hoping to be kind of like a medium to long-term play, but looking to see what you guys say. Thank you very much and have a great day. Bye.

All right, this is EUAD, a new ETF. And typically I don't love these new ETFs, but this one I actually kind of like. It's not easy to gain exposure to these ETFs.

European defense contractors. And this is kind of an all encompassing, easy way to, you know, we'd have to go and do deep research. You just buy a basket of them. And it's already done very well since it started just a few months ago. Let's see, it's already up about 33% year to date. And it started trading. When was that? In October?

And it just kind of bounced around the 24 level until it started breaking out into late January. And then it's been kind of exploding higher. Now, nice little pullback today. Maybe a bit of a buying opportunity. But I like this. It's probably a small exposure. Not a bad way to get access to, yeah, a place where more and more countries are going to have to start spending on defense. Now,

Let's pivot over to another topic, kind of ancillary to this, and this is the fortunes of Tesla. Tesla's gains from Trump's inauguration have almost fully reversed. Have they fully reversed now? Take a look here. Yeah, they're almost there. They're almost there. Actually, no. Yeah, they are. Yeah, they're actually completely reversed. If you go to early October, it was trading at about $1.

238 dollars per share now we're at 222. and this is all because of trump's movement into the white house uh into supporting uh president trump and this is not a political statement this is just the reality on the ground here is that he's alienating a lot of his buyers automotive consulting firm strategic vision found that 22 of car shoppers surveyed said they would definitely consider

a tesla for the purchase of the next vehicle back in 2022 this is in 2022 so that was similar to mercedes-benz bmw and it was kind of on that level well as of last summer before trump was inaugurated and before uh elon got in the white house and the whole doge thing it dropped to seven percent from 22 to seven that's in line with brands like lincoln and dodge okay now as of december

63% of those surveyed said they wouldn't consider buying a Tesla, a 10% drop from the year before. And it's already been a company that has a up and down operating history and had a very old vehicle lineup. There's been a really a true refresh of the Tesla lineup for a long time. We know they have quality issues and the resale values are really bad. So that's all been kind of weighing on the brand.

but now this move by elon has just kind of pushed everyone uh pushed a lot of his base of supporters off a cliff remember elon a decade ago was the darling of the left right he was the one and and i've had a lot of critiques of elon throughout the years well before the any anything political that he ever did and you know he but but if you want to give him credit for something it's making evs a real thing and

proving that you can build a car company just by selling pure EVs. And a lot of the other companies pivoted, right? But that made him the darling of the left. And so, so many Tesla owners are on the left politically. And now that shifted dramatically. Tesla's new vehicle registrations in Germany fell 76% month over month. In France, down 26%.

And the shipments of Tesla EVs out of China down 49%. And so it's really upended this company that already had some issues. And this could end Tesla for good at some point because of, as I've always said, car companies are very difficult. They're highly capital intensive. And if this sales trajectory holds, it's in for a world of hurt beyond what it's already feeling.

I'm Justin Klein. This completes another InvestTalk program. We thank you for listening. We encourage you to tell your friends and family about our free podcast downloads, which you can find anytime at iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play. And be sure to rate and review on iTunes as well. And enter our second annual InvestTalk Market Madness competition. It is underway and you can win $1,000. Just head over to investtalk.com and enter by March 17th.

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