France in Chaos, 4th of July Send
209: Things are heating up across the world
Good morning — for all of my American readers congratulations on making it to the end of the week — a patriotic weekend of tequila sodas, whiskey, dangerous fireworks, scorching heat, and emergency room visits awaits you.
If you guys missed our paid posts this week you can access them below or in the Substack archive:
Chances Are You're Not Ready for 2024
Today we’ll cover global news updates and markets news at a high level before the long weekend.
Markets
Markets have been mixed this week with equities varied and crypto staying at it’s high levels following the ETF and Wall Street adoption news over the last two weeks.
Traders and funds will be watching the PCE release this morning.
The Core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index report for May, the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) preferred inflation gauge, will be unveiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Friday, June 30 at 12:30 GMT (FXStreet) (see Kobeissi Letter below)
UK passes bill recognising Bitcoin and crypto as a regulated financial activity
The SEC has charged a former Pfizer, $PFE. statistician with insider trading who bought and traded ahead of a covid-19 announcement
The U.S. will enter a downturn in the fourth quarter, followed by a “year of contraction and a European recession in 2024,” according to HSBC Asset Management.
$1.4 Trillion Franklin Templeton has said Bitcoin can become a "regular part of investors' portfolios once regulations are clear"
Citigroup Reviews Partnership With Metaco, Which Was Bought by Ripple XRP (Bloomberg)
Last week, 5 of 13 charges against Sam Bankman-Fried in relation to the financial fraud of FTX have been withdrawn by the Assistant US Attorneys for the DOJ, per NYT (UW)
LTC 0.00%↑ Litecoin has had a nice pop of over +20% today
Apple's market cap has passed over $3 trillion in early trading Friday morning
President Biden says he's going to make the tax system fair by eliminating loopholes for crypto traders (Watcher Guru)
FTX has decided to halt sale of its $500 million stake in an AI company (Bitcoin News)
At the moment I am letting my winners ride in the equity markets — I haven’t added much in the last two weeks except some MSFT 0.00%↑ and BABA 0.00%↑ . One degenerate trade I have on is $PEPE the meme coin. In recent weeks PEPE has outperformed stale meme coins like SHIBA or DOGE.
The logic with PEPE is simple. I believe the next big move (which is already playing out with the PCE drop) is up for both Bitcoin and Ethereum (although the SEC news just came in which could change this). So far it has been a pump dominated by Bitcoin after we got the Wall Street releases over the last two weeks — Ethereum has yet to breach $2,000. If you’re a regular reader by now you know that pumps generally follow this sequence: BTC → Ethereum → Alt Coins/Meme Coins. This is not rocket science — it’s a simple momentum bet that PEPE will benefit in the next 72 hours from pumps in ETH and other major alts. I am currently up 12% on the trade and will likely cut if I surpass 50% in gains.
A reminder — trading shitcoins and memecoins is fun — but they quickly lose liquidity in a downturn — if you partake limit what you put in. Still, I like my odds better than throwing everything on black at Mohegan Sun on a Thursday night.
At the time of writing this the news just came out that the SEC says spot Bitcoin ETF filings are inadequate (WSJ). So in the short term this could lead to more downside before investors digest the impact of this on continued bullish momentum.
Only blue chip I will buy on a pullback is Ethereum right now.
Sentiment continues to turn bullish across traditional finance insitutions as well.
According to a survey conducted by Binance, the leading cryptocurrency exchange in terms of market value, their institutional clients hold a positive outlook on the future of crypto for the upcoming year and beyond. The study, carried out by Binance Research and Binance VIP & Institutional team, involved 208 clients and took place from March 31 to May 15, 2023. Among the respondents, 52% managed crypto assets worth less than $25 million, while 22.6% managed assets exceeding $100 million in value (Coindesk)
“The coming US recession scenario will be more like the early 1990s recession, with our central scenario being a 1-2% drawdown in GDP”
—HSBC
Global News
On the heels of the failed Wagner coup in Russia last week France has exploded into yet another revolution after a police shooting of a teenager. The country has been subject to widespread rioting, looting, and violence over the past week. Actions turned even more aggressive yesterday when protestors found police weapons, and vehicles were used to ram into stores for looting.
In the US the Supreme Court decision to overturn affirmative actions standards at US universities has drawn outcry from proponents and praise from those who think affirmative action is actually institutional racism.
Violent riots continue in Nanterre, France, over the police killing of teenager. French President Emmanuel Macron to hold a crisis meeting Friday as violence in the wake of a police shooting continues to grip the country - AFP
The Supreme Court just overturned affirmative action in college admissions by a 6-3 vote. Here’s the full opinion.
Pornhub has blocked access in Virginia over new age verification law.
Zelensky has reportedly been instructed to strengthen the security of the border with Belarus after the recent relocation of PMC "Wagner" troops on the heel of the failed coup
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met on Thursday with Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg and other members of a new group looking into the environmental consequences of war (Washington Post)
Math and reading scores among America’s 13-year-olds fell to their lowest levels in decades, per ABC (Unusual Whales)
U.S. said it planned to sell $440 million in ammunition and parts to Taiwan, its latest effort to boost the self-ruling island’s defense (Insider Paper)
Twitter has now completely disabled public profiles. To now see tweets, you now have to log in to the platform to view — perhaps this has something to do with the riots in France and efforts to limit the content coming out?
Ex-school resource officer Scot Peterson has been found not guilty on all counts in trial over failure to confront Parkland shooter who killed 17 people (CNN)
PSG coach Christophe Galtier arrested in discrimination probe
Aspartame sweetener is to be declared a possible cancer risk by WHO, say recent reports ( The Guardian)
France Riots
France has been rocked with some large scale rioting and social unrest after the police shooting of a 17 year old teenager. Paris, Toulouse, and other cities have seen widespread acts of arson, looting and violence.
In some cities rioters have gained access to police weapon stockpiles and are out on the streets firing off rounds — there are also reports of police shooting on protestors. Nearly 40,000 officers have been mobilized as of Thursday night and French police arrested over 875 people in the third night of rioting.
The violence and destruction is pretty widespread — French President emmanuel Macron has announced this morning that more troops and officers will need to be mobilized to address the unrest. Trains, construction sites, schools, bodegas, and other locations are all being set on fire or looted.
Sources within the French Police have stated that a number of Stations in Cities across the Country have already completely run out of Non-Lethal Munitions with some stating they also have Low Stocks of Lethal Ammunition (OSINT Defender). Macron has asked social media to remove 'most sensitive' rioting content from their platforms given the abundance of footage and videos coming out of the country as well as blamed “Video Games and Bad Parenting” for the events.
Good reminder for the prepping principles that I have covered here before — the unrest we are seeing has broken out of the peaceful category. It’s important to understand that within everything population lies a subset of people who are waiting for the first opportunity to go crazy — looting, stealing, and committing violence with the excuse of “social justice”.
Seriously — it looks like the Purge in some areas of France.
Bad eggs exist, so it pays to be basically prepared for this type of outbreak — medical, extra water around house, fire extinguisher, extra food etc. Many of the convenient and abundant systems and processes we rely on become crippled in these situations as is evidenced in France.
France is a good example of how quickly it can get out of hand. We should take note of this event as I expect we will see similar unrest in the US leading into the 2024 US election.
Affirmative Action
The US Supreme Court invalidated long-standing legal precedents that permitted colleges and universities to include race as a consideration in their admissions process. On Thursday, the court specifically rejected affirmative action programs based on race at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
The hot take of the year goes to this Twitter account below which people seem to be confused by. Is it satire? Is it a bot? Who knows…. but one thing’s for sure this is an incredibly tone deaf tweet.
Our stance on this is pretty straightforward — people should be hired, admitted, and employed based on their actual merit. Not on subjective criteria or physical attributes that they are born with and have no control over. Many of the problems in this country right now undoubtedly stem from this woke ideology that has been adopted where efficiency and merit is replaced with diversity pushes and arbitrary guidelines.
Don’t you want THE BEST and MOST CAPABLE minds at your college? Or do you want to champion diversity for the sake of diversity? Companies, universities, and institutions have been leaning hard into this ideology over the past several years and many people feel it has reached a point of absurdity.
The two black Justices — Justice clarence Thomas and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had opposite views on the decision.
Thomas had the following to say:
“While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination,” he added, “I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law.”
Jackson quipped:
“Justice Thomas ignites too many more straw men to list, or fully extinguish, here,” Jackson wrote. “The takeaway is that those who demand that no one think about race (a classic pink-elephant paradox) refuse to see, much less solve for, the elephant in the room – the race-linked disparities that continue to impede achievement of our great Nation’s full potential.”
Fourth of July By the Numbers
Capital One has done some impressive research on 4th of July in the US by the numbers. We are truly gluttonous size lors here in the USA. (7/4/2022)
Consumers spent a total of $7.7 billion on food and $3.9 billion on alcohol (mostly beer) for July 4th.
Americans spend over $2 billion on Independence Day fireworks.
Americans spend an estimated total of $73.125 million on hot dogs for July 4th celebrations, purchasing approximately 150 million dogs.
58% of alcohol sales were beer, cider, or FMB.
Americans spent approximately $700 million on wine for July 4th 2022.
Among consumers who purchased Independence Day fireworks, each bought an estimated 5.8 pounds of fireworks.
I hope you all have a great weekend of freedom and liquor units. We’ll be back Monday and Tuesday with paid posts — one featuring an overview of the founding fathers and first Fourth of July and another on the state of unemployment in the US.
that greta zelensky meeting must have been wild.
greta: "that pipeline and dam that ukraine had nothing to do with is such a tragedy"
zelensky: "yeah.. nothing to do with those... ecocide..."
greta: "have you thought about air guns and solar mortars?"
Zelensky: "we need more money for this, hey joe how bout 15 billion for green energy war"
Joe: "chocolate chip mannnn"