changegonnacome

Yep - the ECI had some good news recently on possible soft landing immaculate disinflation being achieved through wage moderation alone........which would take the easy inflation wins we've had.....and actually start to chip away at the underlying sticky inflation which I call made in america inflation......too early to tell This is a beautiful rally.......but let's be clear right now.........the market is "all in" on the soft landing narrative right now IMO........in that sense things feel overbought to me.......but forgetting 'feels' and 'vibes'.......the simple fact remains that the straight line progress on disinflation is running out of the easy 'wins' that were predictable, baked in the cake and helped drive the soft-landing narrative flows of the past few months with MoM 'good news'..........disappointments to this thesis....such as recently increasing energy costs for example or just simply flatlining HEADLINE and CORE inflation converging at or above 3% are what comes next...at which point the Fed will have to remind folks that the target is 2%.....and 3% is significantly above target still....better than 8% sure.....but 3-4% inflation is not what the world's reserve currency and shining city on a hill is meant to be delivering from its central bank Back half of the year will be interesting....maybe the FOMO rally continues (i hope it does...my portfolio is enjoying it as much as the next fellows)........but we've got some serious and possibly thesis destroying knocks coming for the softlanding folks......feels like a time to hedge and lock-in some of these nice gains for 2023....will be interesting to see what the folks who get marked for yearly performance do when they get back to their desks after labor day.

Ukraine's gorrilla warfare in Moscow is a total no brainer.....blowing up empty office building at 4am or whatever where no civilians get killed is a way to bring the war to Russia's doorstep and public mindset in a way that might drive Putin to the negotiating table As I've stated - I just dont see significant military 'wins' occurring on the Eastern front given the artillery and man power dynamics.......the good news coming out of the counter-offensive has been very very very limited.....the below has way more potential at driving some kind of Russian capitulation at the negotiating table that might be acceptable to Ukraine. They should terrorize Moscow with loud but harmless drones......and occasionally do something like the below.

Not sure whether Armstrong is a credible witness to private conservations with the SEC.........and the SEC sure hasnt named a single one of those coins in its Coinbase compliant. The problem for Coinbase are not the ones above......the problem are these ones: Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC): Included in the lawsuit Filecoin (FIL), Sandbox (SAND), Axie Infinity (AXS): Also included in the lawsuit Chiliz (CHZ), Flow (FLOW), Internet Computer (ICP), Near (NEAR), Voyager Token (VGX), Nexo (NEXO): Added to the lawsuit AMP, RLY, DDX, XYO, RGT, LCX, POWR, DFX, KROM: Listed as securities in a lawsuit against a former Coinbase employee for alleged insider trading You go look at these tokens from birth.........and they pretty much ALL fail the XRP test.......which is to say at inception/birth i.e. ITO/ICO they were illegal securities offerings.....some sold to institutions, some sold to retail....doesn't matter....they had websites, roadmaps, founding teams, they made promises and representations about what would happen after the initial token sale, things that the promoters would be doing to grow the 'community', evolve the technology, build use cases.

No afraid not - this is just some piddly finance committee......important and its how bills get made and gain wider support in the house..........for now its really just one of the many pieces of paper that get shuffled around D.C. and serve as means by which politicians get to 'follow-through' on lobbyists 'asks'. The question remains, like for every draft bill floating around D.C.....whats the politics like on getting it passed....the poltics on this bill is very difficult Cointelegraph has a way of making every draft crypto bill knocking around congress sound like it's sitting on the president's desk waiting to get signed into law any minute now.

I wouldnt say alot....there are a quite a few. The problem is that about 99% of the 22,000 tokens out there aren't like this and did not have 'fair' launches...they had IPO's/ITO/ICO's....they were just intially unregistered securities offerings....then they may be morphed on a continuous basis into investment contracts via stalking and various Airdrop schemes etc. Coinbase is going to get nailed because greed made it constantly push the line on its securities howey test 'checklist'.....and it began to list tokens that were so clearly securities offerings....they are toast for this reason. Check out the SEC compliant....they've name checked the tokens they are going to kill Coinbase on.....and they've chosen well.....all they need is one of these tokens to be deemed a security and they are toast.

Sure thats great - but this is not a passed bill - far from it.........even assuming it can come out of the house on a straight line vote (not a sure thing)....it cant come out of the senate as not a single democrat there is on record supporting it. What's resolved? - dont understand this bit.

Again simple test - when the founder/architects of a new token make representations/promises about the future of a coin/token ecosystem prior to their initial sale to someone about what might occur post-sale......its a security..... Bitcoin's launch did not involve the sale of tokens to anyone with promises or representations of what would happen next....it had an algorithmic structure with rewards set out in the whitepaper...it established a protocol/nodes & miners...and it was pushed into existence...it was not SOLD into existence.....it was pushed into existence....and as such was both a commodity at birth and remains so today. Dogecoins.....promise was that there was none.....it was joke......it was pushed into existence with no roadmap, no promise to do anything after you bought it intially or to this day.....it was a commodity at birth and remains so. The problem when you read the compliant against Coinbase...and look at the Coins selected by the SEC........they all to a letter were 100% securities at birth.....and remained so after....they had leadership teams, project roadmaps, 'community' protocol 'foundations' pumping out press releases, initial use case companies sitting on top that had the same people involved at the token launch.....they have/had effectively tech development teams who decentralzied only via the fact they held huge treasury token holdings such they could push changes to protocols.....in short they were elaborate deconstructions of a tradtional corporate entity that IPO'ing......taking an initial intial public offering......and then smashing that promoter group into three supposdely unrelated related third parties - (1) a foundation (2) a use case/consulting/operating company(e.g. Ripple Labs) (3) technical/technology leadership with big chunks of tokens/nodes - is as I said a very elaborate way to deconstruct an IPO'ing company....post-IPO

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-28/us-employment-costs-rise-at-slowest-quarterly-pace-in-two-years?srnd=premium&sref=7zqHEcxJ This is important - and consistent with what I'm watching.......and hell you know it points to a soft landing.....its one reading.....so doesn't make a soft landing.....but wages cooling and moderating like is how 'made in America' inflation gets solved. The Fed should be very pleased with this reading

Also if you find it on Irish stock exchange don’t be tempted to buy - not enough liquidity…..LSE listing is illiquid enough as it is!

Yep IBKR

HSW

Well what they said is that the nature of disinflation on core would be such that once it began to move down it would have a certain momentum to it…..therefore waiting to hit 2% before cutting isn’t necessary if enough downward momentum & progress was observed. The nature of Fed induced disinflationary cycles…..is that they always end up behind the curve…..which is to say the Sahm rule comes into play…..once you push unemployment 0.5% above the previous 12m low….whether you like it or not…..or you cut or not…unemployment is gonna make another undesired incremental 1.5% move up. Trust me on this one - the Fed cutting rates is on the balance of probabilities not going to be something to look forward too…..it would be sign that the macro is deteriorating in a way that is making the Fed uncomfortable and they are trying to rescue the situation.

For sure - you become kind of antifragile in doing so.......and the master of your own destiny.....with a deposit gathered and your house secured.....I think you've got the bedrock to step into financial markets.........you've got a chance then at behaving well during a 50% drawdown for example.

Yep better technical options out there perhaps......but when you insert an average human being with all the behavioral quirks that bedevil us......it for sure represents the highest easiest implemented ROI around & the smoothest ride psychologically........ less opportunity for the big mistakes that can occur in financial markets or other investing endeavours. Short version - it's hard to mess up the purchase of a US home over a 20 or 30yr time period. Your incented to hold, your forced to save via equity build, your home participates in GDP growth......and feckless politicians ensure the real inflation adjusted cost of your monthly mortgage is falling each year.. When folks ask me about financial advice.......I usually always ask have you secured your principal private residence....if they haven't I pretty much always suggest getting this element of their financial life secured as a kind of foundational block.....getting together a deposit can be non-trivial for most.....doing so earlier than later is a big tailwind....the returns to housing are modest but they are consistent...and time is most definitely your friend in this regard.

But wait I thought inflation was gone JP!

In a cold hard spreadsheet anyalsis - one might do better renting a modest home and investing the delta between a mortgage/maintenance vs. renting in SPY for 30yrs…but it presumes perfect execution and behavior. Part of the math why homeownership works out to be successful for most people is that enforces a level of financial discipline on them that wouldn’t exist otherwise the ‘forced’ savings or equity build aspect takes non-savers and consumption junkies and drives ‘hidden’ savings into their day to day lives. A mortgage for most people also creates a perfect income-liabilty matching engine…..30yr mortgage….40yr career….by the time you retire your mortgage is paid down to zero….therefore your monthly housing costs are reduced 90% versus an equivalent renter…this occurs in advance of or around the same time your income also drops 40-60%. Peace of mind is one of the great undervalued assets in life…..and what I’ve described above is just that.

Unfortunately for every BTC buyer.......there was a (insert ICO coin) buyer a couple of years later.....or BTC buyer 18 months ago As Greg says.......if your talking about a slam dunk financial move with unbelievably high probability of a very satisfactory outcome......going short the US dollar with a 30yr fixed rate mortgage via the purchase of a principal private residence......is a slam dunk over 30yrs in 99.999% of cases.....buying crypto XYZ does not have the same probability of success.....it has tail success....but thats way different. My point was that in some respects property works so well......for the same reason BTC is meant to work so well......that fiat currency is being debased by politicians printing money (inflation)......and so hard assets or finite assets benefit......the fact that you can twin a fixed rate debt instrument to a real hard asset is the magic in property.....you get the twins engines of guaranteed 2% inflation plus the American tailwind (GDP growth)....all inside an asset you can live in while it generates those levered returns. It's by far away the smartest financial decision 90% of people make in their lives. Last time I checked no bank will give you 30yr fixed rate loan with 10% down to buy BTC.......and you certainly can't live inside your Bitcoin wallet.

It’s been on the come for a while……but there’s an inevitability to what happens next……consumers hitting a wall…..credit either not available or prohibitively expensive…..the labor market weakening is what I’m watching closely…..now that core and headline are pretty much converged, to see continued progress on inflation the labor market/nominal spending growth has to join the disinflation party…..the best time for that to happen from an inflation psychology point of view would be right about now…..made in china and Ukraine inflation has flattered the headline but progress is progress and that’s important…..but that damn made in America inflation though needs to cooperate…..the issue with this is good news on that front requires some bad news for profits, unemployment.

I agree with this…..all those poor souls buying crypto to stave off the incoming monetary collapse….would have been better advised, using the same crypto framework, to buy hard assets in 2010’s like the roof over their head using a fixed rate debt instrument that goes short the currency. The authorities have sign posted the returns….. 2% a year inflation/hard asset appreciation as a minimum….your mission is simple…..don’t buy property in a clearly identifiable bubble and once that’s not the case (99% of the time)….. your job is to lever that 2% guaranteed return by as much as is humanly possible. Some FHA programs require so little down that I’ve always taught that lots of charities focused on helping the poor would get higher ROI by helping them with down payments……as Greg has pointed out fixing or anchoring your housing costs over the pull changes both monthly cash flow of your household such that’s it’s always improving YoY….but the enforced savings element of building up equity….makes it so you have financial flexibility up the road and importantly into retirement

It's interesting - alot to unpack. Low inflation twinned with low interest rates......allows government to run larger fiscal deficits.....larger deficits have a very good correlation with larger profits for the private sector. Unclear yet whether we are going back to the old regime (ZIRP) or entering a new era (sea change). Lot of arguments in favor of the latter, but let's see. If we are entering non-ZIRP......and interest rates have already started that move.......that will impose, in time, a level of fiscal discipline on government that will shrink annual budget deficits.....which in turn will have knock-on effects for corporate profits. I've been banging on about it since late 2021.....but the most dangerous thing in this environment IMO are relatively slow FCF growers with high multiples........the multiple compression these instruments could be subject too if we are entering a new era makes them dangerous. That these instruments in the main now are recognized as 'best' companies in the market makes them doubly dangerous. You can feel safe buying Apple at 35 times earnings......its far from it however.

@cubsfan Tell me one economic or military policy where the Trump administration was completely and utterly off the charts reckless/stupid/misguided on and then tell me one area where Biden has done an outstanding job, nailing it so to speak.

I think you have me confused.....I dont love Biden and I didn't/dont hate/love Trump either....I'm agnostic & try to be objective on whoever the President happens to be and call it on a policy by policy decision.....based on the tenor & tone of your posts I get the sense that you might find it hard to write a bad thing about Trump or conversely a good thing about Biden. I rarely get into discussions with anybody on politics when I spot somebody's inability to praise or denigrate a president. I hear tribal drums when I read your posts, maybe I'm wrong on that.....but either way I'm not interested in having a discussion in REAL life that sounds like the nonsense that's on MSNBC or Fox News.

never said that - and I gave a facts based reasoning on Ukraine only....from a Russia perspective vis a vie Ukraine...and given Biden's hawkishness as VP in Ukraine portfolio......his ascension to the Presidency, from a Russia perspective was seen as a defacto ratcheting up of aggressiveness by the US. Weak/strong is very subjective word depending on view points....but make no mistake about it from a Russian perspective Biden was perceived to be a president more interested than Trump for sure in making aggressive maneuvers against the Kremlin via Ukraine dabbling. Put crudely, from a Kremlin point of view, Trump was weak (in that he cared little for ratcheting up conflict with Russia via Ukraine) which suited Russia and Biden was perceived as strong as he was highly likely to do the opposite simply based on his hawkish/aggressive/"strong'/tough on Russia during his time as VP with responsibility for Ukraine....which did not suit narrow Russian regional interests at all. The other stuff Afghanistan debacle etc - not going there its off topic.

Seen as some are beating up on Biden - I'll join in but care neither for Biden or Trump...put an electoral gun to my head I vote Biden all day long. Biden is/was perceived by Russia as a Ukraine 'hawk' in that under his watch as VP with portfolio responsibility for Ukraine under Obama....he was seen to have encouraged supported and maneuvered the most hard West pivot that Ukranian leadership had ever taken raising alarm in the Kremlin (if you care to look at it from a singular Russian security perspective). Add in the barisma stuff with Hunter....and you can see....if you pause for a moment and walk in a Russian's shoe for second....the strange feeling that Ukraine was becoming a US puppet state & Biden during his time as VP was chiefly responsible for what Mearsheimar refers to as "the leading Ukraine down the primrose path period" which is to encouraging them to pivot to us more completely as means by which WE ehanced our security in the West....better Ukraine is a western puppet state...than like Belarus a Russian puppet state. When Biden assumed the presidency and given his prior Ukrainian portfolio responbilty and 8yrs a Ukraine hawk......paradoxically for all the Republicans out there that like to pretend that Russia invaded Ukraine because Biden is WEAK......they actually invaded Ukraine after he assumed the presidency because the calculation was that Biden was the most AGGRESSIVE i.e. hawkish president to sit in the Oval Office (vis a vie Ukraine's) in decades. It's no coincidence that Russia invaded Ukraine a year after Biden's inauguration.....they perceived the most Ukrainian hawkish president in decades sitting in the oval office with potentially 8 full years in front of him to transform completely Ukraine into a Western bulwark on Russia's doorstep......a project he'd started as Vice President......or what we euphemistically call a vassal state. I agree with a poster above.......Trump's transactional foreign relations stance......from a Russian standpoint was infinitely more preferable vis a vie Ukraine & Russian security concerns there......than Biden's Ukraine track record....and his idealistic/zealot democracy vs. autocracy rhetoric that characterized his first year in office. Remember the "Summit for Democracy" in December 2021...three short months before Russia's Ukraine invasion: Sitting in Beijing or the Kremlin....and you see the picture above.....you the know the 'deal' as Biden would say.....its projecting liberal democracy because you beleive in it but also because it hurts your enemies (Russia, China, Iran, N.Korea)...and that photo to an autocrat looks like a tonne of future mischief making by the new US president in your part of the world coming down the tracks!!!!!!! I assume Zelensky's in that photo somewhere? (EDIT: to answer my own question, he sure did attend...Ukraine released this statement that was translated and carried on US state departments website no less afterwards: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/UKRAINE-Summit-for-Democracy-Written-Commitment-eng-2021-12-20-Accessible-Final.pdf with this paragraph on the front page : "Ukraine is currently an outpost of democracy and freedom in Europe. For the eighth year in a row, Ukrainians are defending with arms not only their freedom, but the values of democracy and the free world") In international relations - WEAK/STRONG leaders have different meanings depending on your viewpoint......Russia invaded Ukraine during Biden's presidency not because he was perceived to be weak but quite the opposite...Biden was intent, and his track record was flawless, on projecting US power via liberal democratic ideals in far flung regions.....all the better if that liberal democratic idealism also strategically weakened autocratic regimes that were US enemies. In this respect Putin the mad man, Putin the imperialist....is really Putin the calcuting statements (miscalculating for sure based on what happened)....but on Feb 2022 he made a deeply aggressive move to assert dominance on his Western flank. He miscalculated for sure based on subsequent events.......but the calculation contained undoubtedly the above variables....and Biden was a key part.....not because Biden is weak....but because Biden is strong (again weak/strong are subjective and I use them here in terms of a dove vs. a hawk on Ukraine).

You don't weaken a military in the just two years.....you help weaken a military in that time.....weakening was occurring under Obama and most recently Trump (for all his rhetoric about doing the opposite)