Microstrategy (MSTR) provides its customers with business intelligence, mobile software, and cloud-based services. Despite losing money and zero growth in revenues over the last ten years, investors can’t seem to buy enough of MicroStrategy. The rationale is not based on prospects for their core technology businesses but on their massive accumulation of Bitcoin since 2020. […]
Over the last few months, the downward inflation trend has slowed appreciably. Such leads some to conclude that inflation is sticky and likely to stay around current levels instead of returning to the Fed’s 2% target. As we have noted on numerous occasions, we think inflation will continue to decline over time. The pandemic-related damage […]
Wall Street banks, brokers, and asset managers put out market research, which can be of great value. While valuable, we read their research with skepticism and question its authenticity. Firms like Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, and others have a glaring bias. The industry makes billions in annual profits by selling stocks and bonds to investors. Consequently, […]
Gold and Bitcoin have been among some of the best-performing assets recently, yet despite their outperformance, the companies that mine for gold and bitcoin lag well behind their respective products. The lower two graphs show the price ratio of gold versus gold miners and bitcoin versus bitcoin miners. Over the last two years, gold has […]
Friday’s employment data from the BLS was a mixed bag. The closely followed nonfarm payrolls number grew by 275k jobs, decently above expectations of +190k. Despite the seemingly strong number, the unemployment rate rose by 0.2% to 3.9%. Last month’s scorching gain of 353k jobs was revised lower to 229k. You may wonder why the […]
The Fed is doing QT and keeping interest rates at 15+ year highs. Mortgage rates are 7%, credit cards are around 20%, and auto loans are between 7% and 10%. As the graph below on the right shows, consumer loan growth, excluding the pandemic, has fallen to levels last seen over ten years ago. Loan […]
From Monday’s close to its low point on Tuesday, Bitcoin declined by over 13%. While a 13% decline in one day may seem enormous for almost any asset class, it’s not that out of the ordinary for Bitcoin traders and investors. As we graph below, Bitcoin has fallen by 13% or more intraday 59 times […]
Paul Volcker, Fed Chairman from 1979 to 1987, passed away in 2019. However, poignant words from his book Keeping At It, The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government may haunt the Fed today. In his book published in 2018, Paul Volcker offers the following advice. The real danger comes from encouraging or inadvertently tolerating […]
“Mooning“- When the value of an asset skyrockets, exceeding investors’ expectations. The phrase mooning, often used in crypto investor circles, is equally appropriate to describe Nvidia’s recent price action. The Bloomberg graph below shows that Nvidia’s market cap just eclipsed $2 trillion and surpassed Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco. Consider that a little more than […]