They have become the broken records of gloom: since late 2022, Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson and JPM's Marko Kolanovic have peddled a bearish narrative that has been as relentless as it has been wrong, and even when the S&P rose more than 1000 points from its Oct 2022 lows (roughly around the time the formerly permabullish Kolanovic turned into a bear), they have refused to change their tune even as their more nimble (and flip-floppy) Wall Street peers such as BofA's Savita Subramanian and Goldman's David Kostin turned from mega bears to ultra bulls months ago.
Now, as we noted back in February, the rally most likely won't end until Mike and Marko finally capitulate, and so far that has certainly been the case....
Rally won't end until Wilson and Marko turn bullish
... although it increasingly appears that instead of capitulating, the stubborn duo plans on staying bearish as long as it takes to catch the next bear market, even if it means the S&P hitting a new all time high first, and then when stocks finally do drop they will jump out of the bushes and scream "told you so", assuming they are still employed by then of course (and one can be certain they have some powerful and unhappy clients who were kept out of the market meltup of 2023, and who are doing everything in their power to make M&M join the weekly initial claims rolls).
Still, with every week that passes and that the market does not plunge, the litany of argument proposed by the duo of doom may eventually hit the market, and today's note by Wilson is the closest one to the target yet.
Pointing out that "since 2Q earnings season" but what he really means is since the Fed's final, July, rate hike (something Michael Hartnett has long been hammering the table on as the straw that breaks the market's back)...
... Wilson writes that stocks have "taken on a different personality":
Starting with a "sell the news" reaction to earnings results, weakening price action has permeated to early cycle sectors and even to some of this year's biggest winners more recently.
Then, echoing what we said last week, the Morgan Stanley strategist writes that the breakdown in performance breadth within Consumer Discretionary "is particularly notable" and supports the view of Morgan Stanley's economists that "consumer spending is unlikely to keep up with the surprisingly strong pace witnessed in the first 3 quarters of the year."
Let's dig in a little more into the report.
Wilson starts off by rehashing one of his preferred themes: that market internals have been supportive of the notion that we're in a late cycle backdrop with high quality balance sheet factors outperforming, and while defensives have also resumed their outperformance, cyclicals have underperformed. "Value has been aided by strong performance from the Energy sector, while growth has underperformed recently given the interest rate move. Given our relative preference for defensives, we provide the valuation summary in Exhibit 6 across defensive sectors. In terms of absolute multiples, Utilities trades the cheapest (~16x), while Staples trades the richest (~19x)."
At the same time, Wilson writes that "Utilities and Staples look the cheapest (bottom 25% of historical relative valuation levels), while Health Care relative valuation is a bit more elevated. That said, all 3 defensive sectors presented trade in the bottom 50% of historical relative valuation levels, implying that multiples remain undemanding for the cohort."
The uber-bear then points out that breadth under the surface of the market (as measured by equal vs. cap weight performance) looks the strongest in Industrials and Energy, which are "late-cycle" cyclical areas in which he claims that he "continues to be constructive on a relative basis."
This, of course, is Wilson's way of sneaking a longish position in his overwhelmingly bearish view on stocks, by going long "just a few sectors", then if everything rips, he can claim he was right, even if he has been telling clients to short the S&P ever since 3900. Good luck with that particular form of "flexibility". Here is the rest of Wilson's observation on market breadth:
... equal weight vs. cap weight performance for the market overall and for the majority of sectors continues to look weak and has decelerated in recent weeks. Further, just ~30% of stocks have outperformed the S&P 500 YTD and only about half of the stocks in the index are up on the year ( Exhibit 9 ). As we have discussed recently, this type of backdrop has very much put the focus back on stock picking.
And while any half-hearted pivot by Wilson to turn semi-bullish will crash and burn, where the MS strategist may have a valid point is his criticism of consumer stocks: he writes that as with the technical/breadth set-up for consumer stocks looking particularly challenged around current levels...
... what is the anchor thesis behind Wilson's condemnation of the consumer sector is that the "price action is picking up on slowing consumer spend, student loan payments resuming, rising delinquencies in certain household cohorts, higher gas prices and weakening data in the housing sector."
Wilson then turns to the bank's economists, saying they "judiciously avoided making the recession call earlier this year when it was a consensus view" and who now see "a weakening consumer spending backdrop from here—they forecast negative real PCE growth in 4Q and a muted recovery thereafter."
Furthermore, while travel and leisure has been a bright spot for consumption, that dynamic is now also changing to some extent. Here are some more details on that:
Summer travel season was robust this year with approximately 2.5 million people passing through TSA checkpoints daily– higher than volumes seen pre-pandemic during summer 2019. Excess savings and pent-up demand helped fuel this travel boom but both of those tailwinds may now be dwindling according to our economists' views.
A significant proportion of US consumers have drawn down their Covid era excess savings and our US Economics team estimates that lower-income households have fully exhausted their excess savings, while middle- and higher-income households are less willing to spend their excess savings on discretionary consumption. We are underweight the consumer discretionary sector as the consumer becomes increasingly stretched and discretionary travel is one area where consumers could show an appetite to conserve spending. We are seeing travel companies exposed to the lower-income consumer indicating signs of demand weakness.
The Gaming & Lodging industry has been cooling especially in the economy segment of the market. Overall revenue per available room (RevPAR) for US hotels has been tracking at a lower trajectory for 3Q vs 2Q and hotel occupancy is down vs 2019. Economy RevPAR has been consistently down 3-4% yoy since April. While on the high-end, luxury RevPAR was down 4% in April, then flat-to-down 2% through summer and down 3% MTD for September ( Exhibit 14 and Exhibit 15 ). Economy and luxury hotel demand is largely driven by leisure, consumer travel rather than business travel. There has also been weakness in the regional casino space over the past 6 months.
Our most recent AlphaWise Consumer Survey shows that consumers want to keep traveling and 58% of respondents are planning to travel over the next 6 months. However, net spending plans for international travel declined from 0% last month to -8% this month, indicating consumers are planning fewer pricey overseas trips ( Exhibit 16 ). Domestic travel plans without a flight moved higher. This indicates that consumers want to keep traveling but are increasingly looking at taking cheaper trips and are choosing destinations they can drive or take a train to vs. having to fly.
In conclusion, Wilson remains as bearish as always (with some notable carve outs, like being long energy and industrials) and his hope is that this time it is the consumer that finally proves to be the camels that break's this market rally's back. His conclusion is that "investors should avoid rotating into early cycle winners like consumer cyclicals, housing-related / interest-rate sensitive sectors, and small caps" and instead they should "barbell" of large-cap defensive growth with "late-cycle" cyclical winners like Energy and Industrials. So yes, Wilson is evolving, and far from shorting the market, his take-home reco is a targeted long. Whether that is tantamount to full-blown capitulation is unclear, but if stocks do crash in the coming days, the answer is a resounding yes.
Meet the Bitcoinetas, a fleet of transformative vehicles on a mission to spread the bitcoin message everywhere they go. From Argentina to South Africa,…
You may have seen that picture of Michael Saylor in a bitcoin-branded van, with a cheerful guy right next to the car door. This one:
That car is the Bitcoineta European Edition, and the cheerful guy is Ariel Aguilar. Ariel is part of the European Bitcoineta team, and has previously driven another similar car in Argentina. In fact, there are currently five cars around the world that carry the name Bitcoineta (in some cases preceded with the Spanish definite article “La”).
Argentina: the original La Bitcoineta
The story of Bitcoinetas begins with the birth of 'La Bitcoineta' in Argentina, back in 2017. Inspired by the vibrancy of the South American Bitcoin community, the original Bitcoineta was conceived after an annual Latin American Conference (Labitconf), where the visionaries behind it recognized a unique opportunity to promote Bitcoin education in remote areas. Armed with a bright orange Bitcoin-themed exterior and a mission to bridge the gap in financial literacy, La Bitcoineta embarked on a journey to bring awareness of Bitcoin's potential benefits to villages and towns that often remained untouched by mainstream financial education initiatives. Operated by a team of dedicated volunteers, it was more than just a car; it was a symbol of hope and empowerment for those living on the fringes of financial inclusion.
Ariel was part of that initial Argentinian Bitcoineta team, and spent weeks on the road when the car became a reality. The original dream to bring bitcoin education even to remote areas within Argentina and other South American countries came true, and the La Bitcoineta team took part in dozens of local bitcoin meetups in the subsequent years.
One major hiccup came in late 2018, when the car was crashed into while parked in Puerto Madryn. The car was pretty much destroyed, but since the team was possessed by a honey badger spirit, nothing could stop them from keeping true to their mission. It is a testament to the determination and resilience of the Argentinian team that the car was quickly restored and returned on its orange-pilling quest soon after.
Over the more than 5 years that the Argentinian Bitcoineta has been running, it has traveled more than 80,000 kilometers - and as we’ll see further, it inspired multiple similar initiatives around the world.
In early 2021, the president of El Salvador passed the Bitcoin Law, making bitcoin legal tender in the country. The Labitconf team decided to celebrate this major step forward in bitcoin adoption by hosting the annual conference in San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador. And correspondingly, the Argentinian Bitcoineta team made plans for a bold 7000-kilometer road trip to visit the Bitcoin country with the iconic Bitcoin car.
However, it proved to be impossible to cross so many borders separating Argentina and Salvador, since many governments were still imposing travel restrictions due to a Covid pandemic. So two weeks before the November event, the Labitconf team decided to fund a second Bitcoineta directly in El Salvador, as part of the Bitcoin Beach circular economy. Thus the second Bitcoineta was born.
The eye-catching Volkswagen minibus has been donated to the Bitcoin Beach team, which uses the car for the needs of its circular economy based in El Zonte.
Late 2021 saw one other major development in terms of grassroots bitcoin adoption. On the other side of the planet, in South Africa, Hermann Vivier initiated the Bitcoin Ekasi project. “Ekasi” is a colloquial term for a township, and a township in the South African context is an underdeveloped urban area with a predominantly black population, a remnant of the segregationist apartheid regime. Bitcoin Ekasi emerged as an attempt to introduce bitcoin into the economy of the JCC Camp township located in Mossel Bay, and has gained a lot of success on that front.
Bitcoin Ekasi was in large part inspired by the success of the Bitcoin Beach circular economy back in El Salvador, and the respect was mutual. The Bitcoin Beach team thus decided to pass on the favor they received from the Argentinian Bitcoineta team, and provided funds to Bitcoin Ekasi for them to build a Bitcoineta of their own.
Bitcoin Ekasi emerged as a sister organization of Surfer Kids, a non-profit organization with a mission to empower marginalized youths through surfing. The Ekasi Bitcoineta thus partially serves as a means to get the kids to visit various surfer competitions in South Africa. A major highlight in this regard was when the kids got to meet Jordy Smith, one of the most successful South African surfers worldwide.
Coincidentally, South African surfers present an intriguing demographic for understanding Bitcoin due to their unique circumstances and needs. To make it as a professional surfer, the athletes need to attend competitions abroad; but since South Africa has tight currency controls in place, it is often a headache to send money abroad for travel and competition expenses. The borderless nature of Bitcoin offers a solution to these constraints, providing surfers with an alternative means of moving funds across borders without any obstacles.
Photo taken at the South African Junior Surfing Championships 2023. Back row, left to right:
Mbasa, Chuma, Jordy Smith, Sandiso. Front, left to right: Owethu, Sibulele.
To find out more about Bitcoineta South Africa and the non-profit endeavors it serves, watch Lekker Feeling, a documentary by Aubrey Strobel:
The European Bitcoineta started its journey in early 2023, with Ariel Aguilar being one of the main catalysts behind the idea. Unlike its predecessors in El Salvador and South Africa, the European Bitcoineta was not funded by a previous team but instead secured support from individual donors, reflecting a grassroots approach to spreading financial literacy.
The European Bitcoineta is a Mercedes box van adorned with a prominent Bitcoin logo and inspiring messages, and serves as a mobile hub for education and discussion at numerous European Bitcoin conferences and local meetups. Inside its spacious interior, both notable bitcoiners and bitcoin plebs share their insights on the walls, fostering a sense of camaraderie and collaboration.
Introduced in December 2023 at the Africa Bitcoin Conference in Ghana, the fifth Bitcoineta was donated to the Ghanaian Bitcoin Cowries educational initiative as part of the Trezor Academy program.
Bitcoineta West Africa was funded by the proceeds from the bitcoin-only limited edition Trezor device, which was sold out within one day of its launch at the Bitcoin Amsterdam conference.
With plans for an extensive tour spanning Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, and potentially other countries within the ECOWAS political and economic union, Bitcoineta West Africa embodies the spirit of collaboration and solidarity in driving Bitcoin adoption and financial inclusion throughout the Global South.
All the Bitcoineta cars around the world share one overarching mission: to empower their local communities through bitcoin education, and thus improve the lives of common people that might have a strong need for bitcoin without being currently aware of such need. As they continue to traverse borders and break down barriers, Bitcoinetas serve as a reminder of the power of grassroots initiatives and the importance of financial education in shaping a more inclusive future. The tradition of Bitcoinetas will continue to flourish, and in the years to come we will hopefully encounter a brazenly decorated bitcoin car everywhere we go.
If the inspiring stories of Bitcoinetas have ignited a passion within you to make a difference in your community, we encourage you to take action! Reach out to one of the existing Bitcoineta teams for guidance, support, and inspiration on how to start your own initiative. Whether you're interested in spreading Bitcoin education, promoting financial literacy, or fostering empowerment in underserved areas, the Bitcoineta community is here to help you every step of the way. Together, we will orange pill the world!
This is a guest post by Josef Tetek. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution…
Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution of the market into a “casino” following the pandemic, where retail traders have increased their speculative appetites.
“Such is unsurprising, given that retail investors often fall victim to the psychological behavior of the “fear of missing out.” The chart below shows the “dumb money index” versus the S&P 500. Once again, retail investors are very long equities relative to the institutional players ascribed to being the “smart money.””
“The difference between “smart” and “dumb money” investors shows that, more often than not, the “dumb money” invests near market tops and sells near market bottoms.”
That enthusiasm has increased sharply since last November as stocks surged in hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates. As noted by Sentiment Trader:
“Over the past 18 weeks, the straight-up rally has moved us to an interesting juncture in the Sentiment Cycle. For the past few weeks, the S&P 500 has demonstrated a high positive correlation to the ‘Enthusiasm’ part of the cycle and a highly negative correlation to the ‘Panic’ phase.”
That frenzy to chase the markets, driven by the psychological bias of the “fear of missing out,” has permeated the entirety of the market. As noted in “This Is Nuts:”
“Since then, the entire market has surged higher following last week’s earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA). The reason I say “this is nuts” is the assumption that all companies were going to grow earnings and revenue at Nvidia’s rate. There is little doubt about Nvidia’s earnings and revenue growth rates. However, to maintain that growth pace indefinitely, particularly at 32x price-to-sales, means others like AMD and Intel must lose market share.”
Of course, it is not just a speculative frenzy in the markets for stocks, specifically anything related to “artificial intelligence,” but that exuberance has spilled over into gold and cryptocurrencies.
Birds Of A Feather
There are a couple of ways to measure exuberance in the assets. While sentiment measures examine the broad market, technical indicators can reflect exuberance on individual asset levels. However, before we get to our charts, we need a brief explanation of statistics, specifically, standard deviation.
“Like a rubber band that has been stretched too far – it must be relaxed in order to be stretched again. This is exactly the same for stock prices that are anchored to their moving averages. Trends that get overextended in one direction, or another, always return to their long-term average. Even during a strong uptrend or strong downtrend, prices often move back (revert) to a long-term moving average.”
The idea of “stretching the rubber band” can be measured in several ways, but I will limit our discussion this week to Standard Deviation and measuring deviation with “Bollinger Bands.”
“Standard Deviation” is defined as:
“A measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is calculated as the square root of the variance.”
In plain English,this meansthat the further away from the average that an event occurs, the more unlikely it becomes. As shown below, out of 1000 occurrences, only three will fall outside the area of 3 standard deviations. 95.4% of the time, events will occur within two standard deviations.
A second measure of “exuberance” is “relative strength.”
“In technical analysis, the relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset. The RSI is displayed as an oscillator (a line graph that moves between two extremes) and can read from 0 to 100.
Traditional interpretation and usage of the RSI are that values of 70 or above indicate that a security is becoming overbought or overvalued and may be primed for a trend reversal or corrective pullback in price. An RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition.” – Investopedia
With those two measures, let’s look at Nvidia (NVDA), the poster child of speculative momentum trading in the markets. Nvidia trades more than 3 standard deviations above its moving average, and its RSI is 81. The last time this occurred was in July of 2023 when Nvidia consolidated and corrected prices through November.
Interestingly, gold also trades well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI reading of 75. Given that gold is supposed to be a “safe haven” or “risk off” asset, it is instead getting swept up in the current market exuberance.
The same is seen with digital currencies. Given the recent approval of spot, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the panic bid to buy Bitcoin has pushed the price well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI of 73.
In other words, the stock market frenzy to “buy anything that is going up” has spread from just a handful of stocks related to artificial intelligence to gold and digital currencies.
It’s All Relative
We can see the correlation between stock market exuberance and gold and digital currency, which has risen since 2015 but accelerated following the post-pandemic, stimulus-fueled market frenzy. Since the market, gold and cryptocurrencies, or Bitcoin for our purposes, have disparate prices, we have rebased the performance to 100 in 2015.
Gold was supposed to be an inflation hedge. Yet, in 2022, gold prices fell as the market declined and inflation surged to 9%. However, as inflation has fallen and the stock market surged, so has gold. Notably, since 2015, gold and the market have moved in a more correlated pattern, which has reduced the hedging effect of gold in portfolios. In other words, during the subsequent market decline, gold will likely track stocks lower, failing to provide its “wealth preservation” status for investors.
The same goes for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is substantially more volatile than gold and tends to ebb and flow with the overall market. As sentiment surges in the S&P 500, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies follow suit as speculative appetites increase. Unfortunately, for individuals once again piling into Bitcoin to chase rising prices, if, or when, the market corrects, the decline in cryptocurrencies will likely substantially outpace the decline in market-based equities. This is particularly the case as Wall Street can now short the spot-Bitcoin ETFs, creating additional selling pressure on Bitcoin.
Just for added measure, here is Bitcoin versus gold.
Not A Recommendation
There are many narratives surrounding the markets, digital currency, and gold. However, in today’s market, more than in previous years, all assets are getting swept up into the investor-feeding frenzy.
Sure, this time could be different. I am only making an observation and not an investment recommendation.
However, from a portfolio management perspective, it will likely pay to remain attentive to the correlated risk between asset classes. If some event causes a reversal in bullish exuberance, cash and bonds may be the only place to hide.
BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals.
Credit: Impact Journals
BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals.
Impact Journals will be participating as an exhibitor at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024 from April 5-10 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. This year, the AACR meeting theme is “Inspiring Science • Fueling Progress • Revolutionizing Care.”
Visit booth #4159 at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 to connect with members of the Agingteam.
About Aging-US:
Agingpublishes research papers in all fields of aging research including but not limited, aging from yeast to mammals, cellular senescence, age-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s diseases and their prevention and treatment, anti-aging strategies and drug development and especially the role of signal transduction pathways such as mTOR in aging and potential approaches to modulate these signaling pathways to extend lifespan. The journal aims to promote treatment of age-related diseases by slowing down aging, validation of anti-aging drugs by treating age-related diseases, prevention of cancer by inhibiting aging. Cancer and COVID-19 are age-related diseases.
Agingis indexed and archived byPubMed/Medline (abbreviated as “Aging (Albany NY)”), PubMed Central, Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (abbreviated as “Aging‐US” and listed in the Cell Biology and Geriatrics & Gerontology categories), Scopus (abbreviated as “Aging” and listed in the Cell Biology and Aging categories), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, EMBASE, META (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) (2018-2022), and Dimensions (Digital Science).
Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com and connect with us:
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