Powell destroys pivot hopes
118: Another choppy week in global markets
Happy Friday everyone — busy week with a lot going on here at home in the United States but also abroad as geo political tensions seem to boil into other regions, namely the Korean Peninsula, Pakistan, and parts of Europe tertiary to the Ukraine conflict.
If you missed it, this week we put out a highly read and engaged post on the Department of Homeland Security and the revelations that Lee Fang, an investigative reporter from The Intercept, exposed.
In short the DHS has been actively working with META, Twitter, Wikipedia, and other sources to censor, suppress, and regulate free speech as well as content on the 2020 election, Covid 19, Ukraine, Hunter Biden, and more.
It’s not a conspiracy it’s fact and the screenshots and material to prove it is out there. CHECK IT OUT HERE if you are interested.
Markets
Stocks are moving down quickly this Friday morning after a tumultuous week guided by Fed mumbo jumbo speak that really meant nothing.
I don’t know about you guys but I am getting tired of the markets hinging on every word from senile old unelected officials at the Fed who sold the ultimate top months ago and have been insider trading ever since but that’s just me!
The big new this week in financial markets was the fed decision that at first looked promising but quickly led to more selling.
If you missed the FOMC speech by Jerome Powell let me sum it up for you — another 75bps hike which some may have initially construed as slightly dovish, followed by his speech which was definitely hawkish.
Eyes today will be on job and labor reports that should give us an indication of how strong the economy is. Remember the Fed is incentivized to destroy jobs and weaken the economy in order to get inflation under control. We all win! right?!
The Fed basically brought up the idea of a pivot without committing to anything immediately — earliest it looks like we might get a pivot is December but I still wouldn’t count on that for the time being.
"It's very premature, in my view, to think about or be talking about pausing our rate hikes, we have a ways to go."
—Jerome Powell
October Payrolls came in at 261K, versus Exp. 195K
US unemployment rate increased to 3.7%.
Jack Dorsey’s Block surging 13% after beating expectations
A whopping 63% of Americans support the idea of new stimulus checks to combat inflation, according to a Newsweek poll (Unusual Whales).
Credit Suisse is planning apparently to cut more jobs within the global wealth management business starting next week, according to Bloomberg.
Many tech companies have announced broader layoffs as financial and economic conditions appear to be worsening. Cuts are between 10-50% depending on the company. Definitely a sign of things to come They include:
Lyft
Opendoor
Stripe - CEO Patrick Collison said "We were much too optimistic about the internet economy's near-term growth ... and underestimated ... a broader slowdown."
Meta
Morgan Stanley
Chime
Twitter
Elon Musk continued his takeover of Twitter this week, fielding criticism and trolls left and right. His most controversial proposal, to charge $8 a month for the infamous blue check that so many woke journalists and celebrities have, drew intense rebuttals and chirps all week long. AOC in particular came at Musk.
In an email to staff, Twitter said that cuts will begin at noon ET (roughly 50% of workforce): "In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday."
Twitter was sued Thursday over Elon Musk's plan for mass layoffs — we will keep you guys updated on this devlopment but apparently in the UK Twitter employees were not notified of being fired and only realized when they tried to login into company computers instantly seeing they were wiped and that they had been locked out.
In the crypto world, at least as of this morning we have what appears to be a slight decouple from equity markets and I am in fact up much more on my long term crypto holdings then I am say, on my big tech stocks. I am down 50-60% on some super “quality” long term DCA buys like AMZN, MSFT, and NVDA.
Gross.
Two of our long term picks Polygon (MATIC) and Chainlink (LINK) look pretty good all things considered and Bitcoin/Ethereum seem to be holding up okay despite the volatility. This week JPMorgan placed their first execution/trade in decentralized finance utilizing MATIC and AAVE.
Ty Lobban who works on/for Web3 Products & Onyx Digital Assets walked through the transaction in a twitter thread (linked below).
This is pretty big news.
MATIC received more momentum from an announcement from the struggling META, that they announced plans to mint & sell NFTs on Instagram using the MATIC network.
MATIC has rallied nearly 30% in the past two days hitting a six-month high of $1.15 Friday and shirking the bear market narrative plaguing many assets.
If you want to learn more about the value prop and use cases of MATIC check out our guide we did a few months back.
This type of adoption, testing, and activity bodes extremely well for layer 2 investment theses, and is nice to see from large institutions who are giving us hints as to which assets may pump aggressively in the future with enterprise/institutional adoption and use.
Litecoin is up 20% in the last 5 days
Bitcoin and ethereum are rallying this morning
Commodities giant Glencore (GLCNF) has been ordered to pay a record £281 million ($314 million) penalty by a UK court for bribing officials across the continent of Africa to gain access to oil and other privileges (CNN).
An SFO investigation found that Glencore had funneled approximately $29 million worth of bribes between 2011 and 2016 through various workers and agents across its oil operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan.
Talk about illegal size movers.
Global News
South Korea and the US issued staunch warnings to North Korea, after the dictator led country proceeded to launch over 18 missiles this week including mostly ballistic and one suspected ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) throughout the Korean Peninsula and near Japan — who had air raid alarms going off all week.
A broad retreat has been cited by analysts by Russia in Ukraine — though many remain weary.
The US midterm election season is in fully swing. This week Paul Pelosi was attacked at his home in San Francisco by a vagrant that the left is calling a MAGA far right extremist.
This clashes with on the ground reports that the man is a weed smoking hippie who lived in Berkeley.
Conditions around the event are continuing to be leaked including who actually answered the front door, why the glass out back was on the outside and not the inside, and why the Pelosi’s, one of America’s most prominent political families, had no security present on premise.
Video evidence is not being released to the public and some have formed theories that go against the official narrative online.
I am sure more details will emerge on this but for the time being Paul is said to make a full recovery in the hospital.
Nonetheless early reports point to a potential “red wave” as issues like high crime, inflation, and cost of living are center and the focus of many Americans. Most notably is the race for Pennsylvania and New York.
“Political Violence” and the “fate of democracy” are tag lines being used by both sides of the aisle as the high stakes mid terms play out. The results will likely be a hint at how the 2024 election plays out.
Trump has said he will 'very, very, very probably' run in 2024 and make an announcement after mid term elections
A woman was choked unconscious and sexually assaulted while jogging in New York City’s West Village early Thursday morning - the man had 20+ prior arrests and previous sexual aggravations but was somehow allowed out on the streets
The Brooklyn Nets suspended Kyrie Irving for at least five games without pay Thursday, dismayed by his repeated failure to "unequivocally say he has no antisemitic beliefs (ESPN)
Pakistan’s ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan has somehow survived a shooting at a political rally on Thursday that his party has called an assassination attempt
The situation in Ukraine is becoming a bit more unpredictable as Russian rhetoric is escalating and threats are being made right and left to parties that could potentially help Ukraine, including Israel, who offered rockets and arms to Ukraine to aid in the fight.
A group of Seven foreign ministers have agreed on the need for coordinated efforts and a mechanism to help Ukraine repair, restore, as well as defend its critical energy and water infrastructure, a senior US State Department official said on Friday (Dw.com).
Rumors have started to spread and Russia has announced that the country has gathered the technical and forensic evidence that implicates the UK as the saboteur of the Nord Stream pipelines — noting they likely had U.S. approval. The big question at this point is if Russia will act on this claim.
“We are fighting against satan (the west) in Ukraine, and we have the weapons to send them to hell.”
"They (Ukraine) are a bunch of insane Nazi drug addicts, a nation drugged and intimidated by them, and a large pack of barking dogs from the Western kennel"
—Dmitry Medvedev, Russian Deputy Chair of the Security Council
Hope everyone has an excellent weekend. I will be enjoying the fall weather and running up my level on the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare game. I highly recommend it if you like video games, I am impressed by the game so far and it will surely be one of their better releases.
It’s been a vice of mine since the very first one game out when I was a young lad. We’ve thought about streaming for fun but not sure how many folks would find that interesting — if you would let us know.
Anyways make sure to get outside this weekend and enjoy some time with friends and the family. Work can wait for the time being.
Monday I am dropping a highly anticipated post to our paid subs on “Abundance Mentality”.
This mantra that I have adopted in my personal and professional life has served me extremely well and is one of the reason’s I attribute to the success I have seen so far in my side hustles, relationships, and business ventures.
It will be incredibly helpful for most people to read and think about.
cheers
Great way to start a Friday
Saw the new Xbox is on sale at Costco for $230............. Modern Warfare might be calling my name