Zooming Out
Recently, we have been quite cautious about cryptoasset prices in the immediate term, recommending that investors hedge to the downside. We still think this is appropriate given the relentless hawkish signaling from the Fed and lack of conclusive softening economic data. While we believe there are signs of inflation turning over, we find it difficult to rationalize anyone with near-term liquidity needs to bet the farm on cryptoassets.
However, we want to take some time today to look at a few variables that demonstrate that if one’s investment time horizon is greater than 1-2 months, now is a great time to start allocating size to bitcoin.
Fiat Stuff
This week we had several companies issue weaker guidance. While many are concerned about demand destruction negatively affecting the real domestic economy, the major companies that revised their expectations (Microsoft, Salesforce) did so due to the dollar’s strength ($DXY). Despite our long-term view that fiat currencies are structurally inferior to bitcoin, the current macro landscape has caused many investors to rush to the greenback.
Reports you may have missed
ADJUSTING TO A POST-FTX WORLD A couple of weeks ago, we discussed several critical risk vectors remaining in the market and provided our take on each matter. Our near-term view was that it was more likely than not that most of the contagion from the implosion of FTX had been sifted through, but due to the unknown status of Digital Currency Group, investors might not be getting paid enough for...
COINS DO NOT CARE ABOUT EPS As we have addressed over the past month, cryptoassets were nonreactive to the onslaught of gruesome tech earnings this week. At the time of writing, bitcoin, ether, and the rest of the crypto ecosystem have vastly outpaced the Nasdaq. As we can see below, a major contributing factor to crypto doing so well is yields rolling over for the first time since early October....
CRYPTO CONTINUES TO SHOW RELATIVE STRENGTH It was an eventful week in global macro (this is now the default opening line of every note), as consequential headlines rolled across the tape at a rapid clip. Among them:Signs of slowing demand appeared in Apple’s revised agreement with suppliers, and early signs of potential deflation were on display in Nike’s surging inventories.Despite this, the Fed’s preferred inflation figure, PCE, came in extra...
FED RAISED RATES ABOVE FUTURES This week, the Fed went ahead and raised interest rates another 75 bps in its attempt to stimy demand and bring down the prices of consumer goods. While the rate hike was already priced in by the market, the Fed’s revised dot plot was not. The Federal Reserve’s forecast for rates (green line below) was well above the futures market expectations. Thus, asset prices continued...
