Covid Origins & Market Chop
168: The simulation is showing some big cracks
Goooooooood afternoon Vietnam and USA friends.
Hope everyone is crushing the week, making money, and avoiding the lizard people psy ops that plague us as of late.
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Are you prepared for the worst?
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Let’s get into a brief update today for Markets and Global News.
Markets
Markets have lulled a bit off of their small rally we saw the last several weeks with traders and institution weary of the growing risks of NATO involvement in the War in Ukraine, stubborn inflation, and a likely continued rate hike cadence from the Federal Reserve.
Crypto is undergoing some additional chop this week as key banking partner Silvergate announced the company will be delaying its annual report and said it would report further losses.
The announcement saw many larger crypto companies attempt to distance themselves from the historically crypto friendly banking group. Coinbase, Paxos, Galaxy Digital, Gemini, BitStamp, Crypto.com and Circle all ended up issuing statements
"If you do choose to deposit funds into this account, you do so at your own risk," Bitstamp added.
Gemini said it has "zero customer funds and zero GUSD [stablecoin] with Silvergate" and it has stopped processing transactions through Silvergate (Yahoo Finance)
Stocks mostly rose Thursday in an afternoon rally as traders seemed to pay no mind to concerns over higher interest rates and Fed rhetoric.
OpenAI released ChatGPT API this week
Coinbase announced plans to drop Silvergate as a USD Banking Partner for Prime Customers, and will be moving to to Signature (DB)
Tesla tumbled 8% at the market open Thursday US following its investor day
Crypto․com suspended USD deposits and withdrawals via Silvergate this morning
Treasury Secretary Janey Yellen announced this week says US has no plans to ban crypto but will implement "strong regulatory framework
Third Point's Dan Loeb has taken a passive stake in semi/chipmaker AMD
No bueno
44% of Americans say they have a side hustle in addition to full-time jobs — up 13% from 2020 — with inflation as the biggest motivating factor, per Axios (Unusual Whales)
Mortgage applications for home purchases fall to a 28-year low, per Michael Kantro and the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose back over 7%, rising to 7.1%, via CNBC.
The Inverse Cramer ETF officially launched today - Tuttle Capital Management has launched The Long Cramer Tracker ETF (BATS:LJIM) and The Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF (BATS:SJIM)
The Blockchain oracle network Chainlink, which is built on Ethereum, has announced the development of a new platform that would assist developers in connecting web 3.0 to web 2.0 APIs.
While this bear market has sucked for most investor holding alt coins we remain bullish long term on our core holdings of BTC, ETH, LINK, and MATIC.
Chainlink continues to deliver good news and adoption scaling even as the bear market persists which is not surprising considering it was one of the best performing tokens during the last bear market.
To put it simply, the Chainlink’s new Functions platform will make it easier for developers to connect their decentralized apps (dApps) and smart contracts to any web 2.0 APIs.
Andy wtf does that mean and why do you keep shilling LINK?
The chief product officer of Chainlink Labs, Kemal El Moujahid, says “What this does is offer a big opportunity to develop applications that mix the best of Web 2.0 with smart contracts.” Another key piece to this update is that it provides developers with assistance in establishing links to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and META (BTC-Pulse.com)
If you’ve been following our journey with LINK you know they have an absurd amount of ex FANG talent and are extremely cozy with former META, Amazon, and Google execs.
Can you smell the future pumps?
It will take a lot of years before inflation is put to bed again. We’re in a different paradigm. You’re going to get big moves in different directions.
—Man Group chief executive Luke Ellis (via Financial Times)
I'm going to stay open to any possibility that if data come in stronger than expected then I will adjust my policy trajectory, there is the case that could be made that we need to go higher. Consumer spending is strong and labor markets remain quite tight and that those suggest that the economy’s strength could be a bit more than people think, which means we might need to do more.
—Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic
Recent data suggest that consumer spending isn’t slowing that much, that the labor market continues to run unsustainably hot, and that inflation is not coming down as fast as I had thought
—Fed governor Chris Waller
Global News
The world continues to deal with chaos in Ukraine as well as escalating political drama in the US in relation to Covid 19, the confirmation of the likely origin of the virus, and the measures taken to lock down the entire nation.
China’s become a bit more active in their support for Russia in Ukraine and is actively moving troops and aircraft near Taiwan in the last several days.
The US will announce a brand new military aid package to Ukraine tomorrow, white house says - Reuters
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost re-election this week - she blames election loss on racism and gender
Russia has claimed that the US aided Ukraine drone attacks on Russian military bases.
A new Emerson poll found Donald Trump with a 30-point lead (55%-25%) against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in GOP primary (Insider Paper)
The US Senate unanimously passes bill to declassify COVID Origins Intelligence
New York City police are now wanting shoppers to remove their masks [not long ago required for entry due to Covid 19 measures] before entering stores, according to a CBS report
An Emergency meeting of Russian Security Council is currently underway in response to the incursion of the Ukrainian military in the villages of Sushany and Lyubechane in the Bryansk Oblast according to Russian Media sources
With several high profile institutions including the Department of Energy, WSJ, and the director of the FBI confirming in the last week that Covid-19 likely came from a lab in Wuhan, China, we should all be pausing to digest what this revelation actually means and the implications for what happened the last couple years.
While our critics would say that some of our geo-politcial and international theory takes are a bit out there — there isn’t one theory we’ve had that hasn’t ended up becoming truth at least in part within the last 6 months.
It seems the conspiracy theorists are winning all debates at this point.
This likely confirmation begs several questions that should be answered immediately by the parties closest to the latest intelligence we have:
Exactly where did the virus come from?
Was it released intentionally or by accident?
Who was involved in the development and research/funding of the venture?
Was this actually a Chinese bio weapon meant to disrupt the West’s elections, economies, and society? (We think this is likely)
Why were we lied to about the origin?
Was the entire pandemic simply a deep state money grab opportunity for various parties who knew what would happen once this virus spread?
These aren’t far fetched questions and everybody should be asking them.
We’ve maintained since the very beginning of this entire shit show that this virus was man made and never believed for a second that it came from a wet market or a pangolin.
People were called racists and xenophobes for merely suggesting that this was man made and came from a lab and it really is a stark example of how much deception, censorship, and straight bullshit was thrown forth and utilized to deceive the entire planet in the last several horrible years we all endured.
But this reality is hard for people to accept as are the many revelations beginning to come out about Covid 19 vaccines and boosters.
Chinese and American tensions are becoming worse as military exercises, escalations in Ukraine, the balloon incident, and Taiwan all become front and center. In a recent development Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have forced through a bill that could effectively ban TikTok from all mobile devices in the U.S.
This comes behind Tik Tok’s decision to limit user access if they are under 18 and after a ban of Tik Tok by government officials.
The War in Ukraine is approaching a new phase as most sources agree the Russians are preparing a sizeable spring offensive as troops and armor once again mass at the border.
The city of Bakhmut has been of high strategic and moral importance and some experts speculate it has been one of the largest battles in the last century. The city is under fierce attack from Wagner Russian Mercenary forces and Russian regular troops and some reports indicate that the city is almost surrounded and that Wagner operators have already reached the city center.
We think Western media is holding off on updating us with how severe the situation is for propoganda purposes but we will have to wait and see what happens to be sure of the outcome and status of this key objective.
It should not be understand how critical this city is to Ukraine.
President Zelensky believes holding Bakhmut would give Ukraine a better chance at taking back the entire Donbas region. For Russia, control of the city would likely lay the groundwork for a push northwest, toward the larger cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk (The Hill).
Political Science experts also agree it’s an important transport hub, and a lot of supply lines go through the city that Russia could use as a base to solidify further offensives.
Rough estimates surpass 20,000 killed in Bakhmut since fighting began.
If the planes that would be delivered to Ukraine in the future are serviced in Poland, this will be a direct entry of NATO into the war against Russia
— Medvedev
I will see all of you on Tuesday morning for our 2023 Loafer Guide for the official launch of Veiny Boys season.
Winter of death is almost over kings and queens!
Appreciate these 'hot' takes on the global relations.
Although - they are only hot if you are a moppet
Zeihan observed China intentionally shut down air travel into and out of Wuhan domestically while allowing international air traffic. Save China kill the West...