Latest / The Curve / TCW35: Sour apples for China, sexy dividends for OnlyFans and the lucrative rise of female fever.

Transcript

TCW35: Sour apples for China, sexy dividends for OnlyFans and the lucrative rise of female fever. · The Curve

• 0:00
  Hi and welcome to the Curve Weekly. The podcast that keeps you up to date with all the money,
• 0:06
  business and stock market tea. Everyone should experience for us at least once in their lives
• 0:10
  and Annie shouldn't miss out just because she can't afford it. Help me.
• 0:15
  Hey how have the last few days been Vicki? Oh God. Fun. They've been fun. They've been very
• 0:23
  not me. Like spontaneous trips to the south of France. You know, very not me and after a few days,
• 0:32
  I think I'm going to go back to the old Vicki and, you know, only planned holidays with people I know
• 0:38
  for a long time or friends that I enjoy their company. But who did you go with? It's funny because
• 0:45
  we've met up with a group of friends here. Like we're now, we're now in Centre Pay. This is a
• 0:51
  plan for ages and I'm here with a group of friends and they're like, what, who did you go to
• 0:56
  to nice with? And I was like, just a friend that I met about three weeks ago. Yeah, and we just
• 1:04
  a little spontaneous trip to the south of France. No, but it was really fun. It was it's such a beautiful
• 1:09
  spot there. It's just when you don't know someone at all and then you are spending three days with them.
• 1:18
  Yeah, it's interesting, let's say. But oh my gosh, I did. So Vic, okay, I'm just going to really
• 1:25
  fill in the gaps here. So Vic, we went to nice with someone she went on a date with that she met
• 1:32
  on Hinge and then I get this message from the Vic thing. So I'm just going to go to nice for a few
• 1:40
  days before the holiday in Centre Pay and I was like, oh, yeah, cool, where you going? It's like
• 1:45
  radio silence. It's the sort of thing I would totally. Yeah. But no, it was fun. It was really fun
• 1:52
  and he's French. So it was kind of like awesome. You're in your element. This is great. Ordering
• 1:57
  and French. Yeah. And then we'd like trains late for me and I'd be like, thank you. Yeah, quite
• 2:01
  sexy. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was. And beautiful weather and we just got to run all the time and
• 2:07
  late on the beach and she called me like two nights ago. Really all drunk. He had like popped out to
• 2:13
  get alcohol or something. And she was just like, babe, look at the APNB and I was like, how was it?
• 2:19
  She was on the bed and she turns around and touches the head board and just goes, really nice up
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  whole street. Oh my god, I don't even remember this. Oh my gosh. Oh my god, I'm such a loser.
• 2:33
  I saw my phone in the next morning and I was like, oh, I spoke to self. I spoke to my sister.
• 2:37
  I spoke to her. I just don't remember that. No, but the funniest thing. And I should have probably
• 2:42
  taken this as a sign as I was leaving my apartment in London at 5.30 in the morning. I got stuck in the
• 2:50
  lift. Like could not got to the ground floor and the doors wouldn't open. And I'm, I have mild
• 2:56
  claustrophobia. Like I hate this. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to miss my flight. And I was
• 3:01
  like, well, you know, it's not meant to be. It's not meant to be. Anyway, called the landlord.
• 3:05
  They called the building company. But anyway, no one could get, that was five to anyone.
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  No one's awake in London. So they were like, you need to call the fire brigade. And I was like,
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  oh my gosh, I was like, what a start to this holiday. Anyway, then we got to the trains. I got
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  out of the lift eventually saved. He saved the day. He came into our apartment, wrenched open
• 3:24
  with his arms. So I was like, oh my god. Is that what happened? Yeah. And then yeah, it was quite
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  romantic. And then we got to the train. The train was delayed. Then we got to the flight and
• 3:36
  that overbooked so he didn't have a seat. Like it was just like a like sign after sign after sign
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  after sign. Yeah. Anyway, we managed to get to Nice and have a good time. But yeah, that point,
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  I'd be panicking. I reckon I'd be like something's happening in the universe that doesn't want me
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  to get on this plane. I'd be really stressed out. Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. But you know, sometimes
• 3:57
  you've got to be spontaneous. Just channel. Channel Sophie. All right. Is what I was doing.
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  That's so good. Yeah. I actually am thinking of doing a similar thing. Like I met this guy at a
• 4:05
  festival last year at the surf festival in Portugal. I am so cute. And I just remember hooking
• 4:12
  out with him on the rocks by the ocean, the way I'm not having sex in public, just kissing.
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  Anyway, we've just like kept in touch on Instagram. And he's got this van. And he, um,
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  amazing. He messaged me when he saw that I was in France. And we were just like, where are you?
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  He was like, let's go traveling together. And I was like, um, that's my dream to get in a van
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  and go through Europe. I was like, I actually am considering booking a flight to this little
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  surf town called like Beiruts. And just being like, thanks did it. Why don't I? But where are we
• 4:43
  going to podcast, babe? You can't podcast an event. You know, true, true, true. I'll just do
• 4:49
  in and out. I'll do a couple of days. I'm also going to learn from your experience and just maybe
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  do like two days, rather than committing to like, let's go traveling together. I'll just like
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  dip in, be like, is this alive? Yes or no? I think it's a good reminder though, because I went,
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  I went into that holiday in Nice with like, you know what, if it doesn't work out, I can just
• 5:07
  book another hotel room or I can book a flight back or an early flight somewhere else.
• 5:11
  You know, and I think just bringing back to the curve, I think it's a really good reminder that,
• 5:17
  you know, if you're ever in a sticky situation or anything, having money to get yourself out
• 5:22
  is key. You know, you don't want to be stuck there with someone or stuck in any situation where
• 5:27
  you don't have the means to get yourself out. So I think in the back of my head, I kind of knew,
• 5:32
  you know what, there's always options to get out of here if that's what I need to do. And so
• 5:38
  just to bring, you know, the seriousness into the conversation. I'm trying to segue into like
• 5:45
  finance chats. So there's been a lot of news around Apple and we put this in our, if you've
• 5:52
  signed up to our Curve Weekly newsletter, you would have, we, we worried about this as well,
• 5:55
  but I just wanted to touch on it again on the podcast because there's a lot of headlines
• 6:00
  swirling around and are you eating? Oh my god, she is sad. I know about sound on the bloody
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  microphone. And then she's rummaging around eating a blissful. I'll do it at the end of the
• 6:14
  podcast. Sorry. You're bladder and your stomach need training, I think. This is the pet hate.
• 6:21
  It's funny. Like five minutes left of a meeting once, like literally five minutes to the hour.
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  And so I'm saying, hey, I'm just going to run to the bathroom. I'm like, you know what? We can
• 6:32
  just wrap it up. She's like, no, I'll be back. And so me and this other girl just sitting there
• 6:36
  don't do so funny. We've been talking for so long. We've not talked about anything. Okay. Okay.
• 6:43
  Okay. We've got it. We've got it. Okay. So Apple, so Apple, there's been a lot of the news headlines
• 6:48
  over the last couple of days about Apple. So China has come up with this announcement saying that
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  it's going to ban Apple iPhones for any government person, any government official, any government
• 7:01
  agency, so they cannot use Apple iPhones. So they have to use Huawei or any other brand, really. And
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  I think there's always been this, I guess, kind of big dick energy from China and from America
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  and being the two biggest economies. You know, they're always kind of fighting it out with little
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  nitpicking things like this. But the thing is that this means that companies like Apple get caught
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  in the middle of this of this fight of these two countries. And so, yeah, Apple share price
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  fell about 6% last week. And investors are just getting spooked that is this going to be the start
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  of China banning Apple iPhones, you know, for the whole population, or is it just going to be government
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  officials? Yeah. So it's just kind of spooked people that like, you know, what this this kind of
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  little fight between the US and China could have legs and could get, you know, bigger than
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  than what it is now. And so, you know, maybe it might be that the US then fights back and does
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  something to China. And I don't know, it's just, it's not good news. It's like it creates uncertainty
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  and investors hate uncertainty. So. And the reason there's uncertainty is because China is one
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  of the biggest consumers of Apple iPhones, right? Like they make up a large percentage of, yes,
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  yeah, it's 20% of Apple's revenue, which is about 16 billion dollars. So, you know, I think
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  worst case, you know, 16 billion dollars of Apple's revenue could get lost. You know,
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  best case, this is just headline news and everyone gets over it and it's absolutely fine.
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  And China just leaves it at this being like only government officials can't have Apple iPhones.
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  So it just creates uncertainty of like, people are now factoring, okay, what's the best case?
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  What's the worst case? What does this mean for Apple? Also, Apple manufacturer is the majority
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  of its smartphones in China, you know, what if they then start saying you can't manufacture
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  your iPhones in China? They're going to have to move them manufacturing elsewhere, which means
• 8:59
  it would be more expensive for us buying iPhones. So there's just this, it's an Apple's best interest
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  to have a very good relationship with China. And Apple, being one of the world's and America's
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  you know, biggest companies, it has ripple effects for the index, which the S&P 500 was down because
• 9:19
  Apple is a large part of that. So it's just a lot of noise at the moment and it's just a really
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  good reminder not only to diversify your portfolio because you never know what announcements or what
• 9:31
  country is going to announce something tomorrow the next day, the next week. But it's also a good
• 9:35
  reminder that politics can play a big part in share price returns. Yeah, they can have impact on
• 9:43
  companies' profits and revenue. And yeah, so it just comes back to the fact of it's a really good
• 9:50
  to diversify your portfolio because we could never have seen this coming. We don't know how bad it's
• 9:54
  going to get or how good it's going to get. So yeah, it's kind of hedging your bets or reducing your
• 10:01
  risk. And basically, when you say diversify, what she means is, you know, if you have majority of
• 10:08
  your money invested in Apple or even American companies, that could be a risk because if you see
• 10:16
  the S&P 500, the main index in America go down because of what's happening with China banning Apple
• 10:22
  because Apple's such a massive part of that index. It's just the idea of having your fingers
• 10:27
  in different pies so that if something like this happens and your portfolio does go down a little
• 10:31
  bit, it's not scary scary. It's not the end of the world. And Apple's share price has done over 40%
• 10:38
  this year. So it's done fantastically well. So some of you might be saying they're going, why should
• 10:43
  I diversify when it's done so well if I had all my money in Apple, my savings or my investments
• 10:50
  would have gone up 42%. And yes, they would have, but now we're looking forward, we're going, oh gosh,
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  it's down 6% this week, Apple's share price, but that could, if this wipes out 20% of their revenue,
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  you know, their share price is going to fall a lot more. So again, you even know what's around
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  the corner. So yeah, like, so if you see it, it's really good too. You know, put your fingers in
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  a few more pies. A few more Apple pies. The fact that they've banned it is kind of wild to me.
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  What they think that America's like inserting little spies into the phones for government officials,
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  because it's all of them. Probably. But we remember back, was it a few months ago that the US said
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  they were going to ban TikTok for government. You know, they were allowed to have, you were allowed
• 11:35
  to have TikTok for people like, oh my gosh, that's going to be the whole of America eventually.
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  And so this is what I mean, TikTok is owned by a Chinese company. And so their argument was
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  that, yes, China is spying on or feeding US customers of TikTok or users of TikTok data and stuff.
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  So it is, it is a case of, gosh, it really is a bit of a feud, isn't it? So I think Apple will
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  really needs to have a good relationship with China. And to be honest, Apple provides a lot of
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  jobs for Chinese people as well in terms of manufacturing and boosts China's economy a lot in terms of
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  all of that. So China has to tread carefully because if it does piss off Apple or the US,
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  then there will be flow on effects. But there is, yes, that is essentially why they are banning
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  them. And so we also spoke about this before, but it's really interesting. So Taylor Swift's concerts,
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  Beyonce's concerts, and Barbie. So this whole female fever, whatever you want to call it,
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  they've come out with some stats around the boost that it's had to the US economy. And those
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  three women have increased the US economy by $9 billion. So quite wild, that three women,
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  yes, I guess Barbie is not really a woman, but you know what I mean, have girls, that's amazing.
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  So it's quite incredible that they've all kind of happened at once and had this really empowering
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  effect on the economics of countries and countries that they're touring in. But yeah, in the US,
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  $8.5 billion boost to the economy, which is wild, which is amazing from a job's point of view
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  from enormous. Yeah, economic growth is great for any country. So yeah, I think it's quite,
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  quite crazy. And so $5.4 billion. That's amazing. So two thirds of that is from the concerts,
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  and then the rest is from all the spending around like flight accommodation, all of that. So
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  yeah, so really, really cool to see. And it's increased. So we've talked about
• 13:46
  gross domestic product, which is kind of the measure of economic growth in a country. And it's
• 13:53
  kind of, it's the output of a country. And so it's increased this by 0.5%, which is major.
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  Like it's so gross domestic product. Am I right in thinking it's almost like the
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  network of a country. It's like the total earnings in a way of what that country's worth. And
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  what it's producing from a economic standpoint. And you want that to be growing. So you want that
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  to be growing about most countries grow about two, three, four percent. China's been growing at
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  about six or seven percent. So half a percentage point is what these three ladies have contributed to
• 14:28
  GDP, which is wild, considering, you know, they don't grow that much anyway, that that's quite a
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  significant move. And gross is great for any country, because it means more jobs, it means more
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  productivity, more outputs, yeah, all of that stuff. So go the girls. Love that. It's such a good,
• 14:45
  little fun reminder that it's just having women play in the space of money is really exciting
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  to see. You know, I can't remember exactly, but I think that the director of Barbie,
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  because Barbie's been one of the most successful movies of all time from a revenue perspective.
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  The fact that that was directed by a woman and that those, you know, Taylor and Beyonce have quite
• 15:09
  like female dominated teams of people, you can just imagine how that's going to be empowering
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  other young talented directors and musicians to know that they have a space to make money
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  through their art or totally. And I was just think to tell us off the other day and I was like,
• 15:27
  you know what, she has probably been one of the most successful female artists that's managed to
• 15:34
  just constantly release really good music. You know how some have a good album, maybe not so good,
• 15:40
  or just have their time in the sun and then they're gone or they're not as popular, whereas she
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  like of all the ages as well, like there's older people at her concerts, there's younger people,
• 15:52
  there's there's males, there's you know, like it's there's dads taking their kids, I don't know,
• 15:56
  there's just like it's crazy, the oh, she's amazing. I'm like, wow, this morning I'd run out of
• 16:01
  data and I was running around, I got up so early and I saw the sunrise at the Eiffel Tower.
• 16:06
  Amazing. So touristy. And then we went to art de Triomphe, but the only song that I had downloaded
• 16:13
  on my phone was The Man. Oh yeah. She makes me feel so empowered and so happy and so good,
• 16:19
  and I was just like, had a grin on my face all morning. But no, she's amazing. Speaking about
• 16:25
  the talents, this I just thought was wild. So the founder of Only Fans. So Only Fans I think can
• 16:38
  be quite polarizing for a lot of people, but what are your thoughts on it so?
• 16:43
  I'm intrigued. I think Only Fans is a chance for people to have control of their
• 16:48
  content to make money out of their own bodies in a way that they have autonomy on what is showered,
• 16:56
  what they share, and they can actually make revenue on it. And I think a lot of people are really
• 17:00
  judging about Only Fans. People joke, they're like, oh, you're going to send Only Fans. It's like,
• 17:05
  excuse me, what is the difference between Only Fans and being an influencer on Instagram?
• 17:10
  They're still using their body and their platform to make money. It's been revolutionary
• 17:15
  for a lot of people. Yeah, I agree. I'm a fan of Only Fans. What about you?
• 17:19
  I don't see what you did there. Yeah, no, I'm the same. I think there is going to be this,
• 17:25
  I don't know the word for it, democratization of a lot of like Spotify, you know, it was the music
• 17:31
  industry, industry dominated, which kind of still is of, you know, controlling powerful companies
• 17:37
  and people controlling the talent and the talent, all the content creators, not having much
• 17:44
  influence, sorry, not having much control of what they produce. And it's the same with Only Fans.
• 17:50
  I think it's been really great. And I think we're going to see it in a lot more industries as well,
• 17:54
  just this ownership of what you put out there and how much you charge. And it means that there's
• 18:00
  less exploitation, no matter what industry. So yeah, 100%. And the money is going into the hands of
• 18:06
  the right people, rather than being split between 5,000 different. You know, it's what you were saying
• 18:11
  about the music industry. I think it's a really good point because Spotify and all of the platforms
• 18:16
  that have popped up that have allowed artists to share their music without needing to be signed by
• 18:20
  like, like that in itself is amazing. Things like Only Fans and Spotify and Apple and the way that
• 18:27
  you can now share your content for anyone to see and for free. If you want to, I think is just
• 18:34
  allowing more voices and diversity to be heard across lots of different platforms and art forms.
• 18:41
  Amen, sister. I agree. But speaking of making money for Only Fans, so the founder,
• 18:49
  he is a Ukrainian American guy. And so Only Fans was only set up in 2016, which is wild. Because I
• 18:57
  I feel like it's been around for a lot longer. But anyway, it was only set up in 2016. And he
• 19:02
  has made last year $340 million just in dividends. So a dividend is when a company pays out a portion
• 19:12
  of its profit to shareholders or to investors. So if you had shares in, let's say take the example
• 19:20
  from earlier, for an Apple and they paid out dividends, then they'd be paying out portion of their
• 19:25
  profit two years and invest it and you would get that into your savings or into bank account.
• 19:29
  It's almost like a little thank you for being investor. They're paying back their dividend because
• 19:34
  they know that the future of the business is looking really good so that they can afford to pay
• 19:38
  out a portion of their profits. They don't need to keep them in case something happens.
• 19:42
  So he has received $340 million in dividends from Only Fans. So that is a million dollars a day
• 19:51
  roughly in dividends, which is crazy. I can imagine is that the hold on, they're not a public
• 20:00
  company. No, no. So this is yeah, but it was just a great example of like this is not including
• 20:05
  a salary, this is not including profits, this is purely just dividends of what he's getting.
• 20:09
  So I think it just goes to show the success of platforms like this where you are giving that
• 20:17
  power back to the user. They can still be profitable companies for everybody, if that makes sense.
• 20:25
  I mean, it's very profitable for him. How million dollars a day is this wild?
• 20:29
  Because how many would he still have a huge amount of shares, obviously, especially if it's private.
• 20:34
  I imagine he owns quite a huge portion of that and it's hard to know. When a company's private,
• 20:38
  they don't have to share as much, obviously. So it's hard to know what his direct share holding is,
• 20:44
  but the fact that he's getting that much in dividends and the profit is the profit that Only
• 20:49
  Fans generates about 500 million, I would say he's a large shareholder. Yes, very much. So yeah,
• 20:56
  it's like no business would pay out a huge dividend if they thought, oh gosh, next year is not
• 21:01
  looking good. We're not growing as much or there's a competitor that's getting stronger and
• 21:09
  might impact our revenue growth or there's a number of reasons that a company might not do well,
• 21:14
  but if you could see that as a CEO or as a founder, you wouldn't be paying yourself a huge dividend
• 21:21
  like this. So it does go to show the platforms obviously in really great shape. It's growing strongly,
• 21:26
  they see a good potential for it in the future. So you can really take the learnings from this
• 21:32
  when you're looking at a public investment and thinking if a company is paying dividends and
• 21:37
  it's paid dividends consistently for a long period of time, then that's a sign from the management
• 21:44
  team, the CEO, the founder saying, you know what investors, we have a really solid business here,
• 21:51
  we can see good growth in the future. So we're going to pay out some of our profits to you as investors
• 21:57
  in the form of a dividend. And that's go Only Fans, go the dividend, go the nipple shots.
• 22:07
  Just, you know, nipple shots that end up on those fees, ears, hands, everything, all the
• 22:14
  silver bodies, parts. What do you think would be the one body part that you'd be exploiting
• 22:19
  if you were an Only Fans content creator? Good question. Is this the part of my body that I like the
• 22:26
  most? It would just be the part that you think would generate you the most revenue. I think I have
• 22:31
  nice fees. You do have nice fees. Well, wasn't that the user 3, 4, 9, 6, 1, 8, 7, thought I had nice
• 22:38
  fees as well? So there's one fan. How on earth did you review that? Thank you so much for listening
• 22:45
  to the Curve Weekly. Make sure you hit the subscribe button to stay up to date with all the many
• 22:49
  business stock market news. And if you like what you heard, we would love a review. Thank you.
• 22:54
  Yes, we would love a review that if you did hate it, please don't leave one if you hate it.
• 23:00
  No, but in all seriousness, could you please leave a review? Because it really helps other people
• 23:03
  find your cute little podcast. And we hope you have a good week and see you next Monday. Bye.
• 23:08
  Bye. See you next Tuesday. Wow. See you next Tuesday. I mean Monday.