SPACs, EV SPACs in particular, IPOs such as Airbnb, stocks in the ARK ETF, such as Tesla…
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Once upon a time last year, there was the EV startup hype-boom that found its way to the SPAC hype-boom, and the two combined and generated miraculously swift and spectacular results; and their collapse has been equally swift and spectacular.
And they’re joined by the IPO hype-boom stocks, including the spectacularly hyped highflyers that got shot down, such as Zoom (-49% from peak), Coinbase (-29%), or Airbnb (-35%), and they’re in turn joined by the ARK Innovation ETF (-34%). This whole thing has come unglued.
The EV SPAC boom-and-bust is reflected in the WOLF STREET EV SPAC Index, which has collapsed by 57% since its peak on February 17. The index tracks seven EV-related companies that have gone public via a merger with a SPAC: Nikola, QuantumScape (batteries for EVs), Canoo, Lordstown Motors, Romeo Power (batteries for EVs), XL Fleet (EV drive systems for fleets), and Lucid Motors. Since February 17, these seven stocks combined have shed $35 billion in value, which they should have never had in the first place. Easy come, easy go, except when it’s your money (data via YCharts):
The individual stocks in the EV SPAC index have collapsed even more spectacularly as the individual peaks came with different timing:
| Stock | Price | % from high | |
| Nikola | [NKLA] | $11.83 | -87% |
| QuantumScape | [QS] | $29.48 | -78% |
| Canoo | [GOEV] | $7.92 | -68% |
| Lordstown | [RIDE] | $7.76 | -76% |
| Romeo | [RMO] | $7.18 | -82% |
| XL Fleet | [XL] | $6.04 | -83% |
| Lucid Motors | [CCIV] | $18.60 | -71% |
The SPAC boom has been unwinding more broadly, as depicted by the Defiance Next Gen SPAC ETF [SPAK], which tracks SPACs before and after they merge with a target company. The SPAK has plunged 33% since February 16, to $23.35 Tuesday at the close, below where it had been when it was launched in October last year (stock data via YCharts):
The Renaissance IPO ETF [IPO] has dropped 26% from the intraday high on February 12, after a maniacal rally that started in March 2020 and ended 11 months later, during which the index soared by 252%. And by the looks of it, those stock still have a lot of air under them (stock data via YCharts):
Here are some of the notable top stocks in this IPO ETF:
| Stock | Price | % from high | |
| Zoom | [ZM] | $300.25 | -49% |
| Uber | [UBER] | $46.21 | -38% |
| Coinbase | [COIN] | $303.00 | -29% |
| CrowdStrike | [CRWD] | $195.10 | -22% |
| [PINS] | $59.71 | -34% | |
| Peloton | [PTON] | $91.01 | -47% |
| Royalty Pharma | [RPRX] | $41.68 | -26% |
| Lyft | [LYFT] | $48.82 | -38% |
| Datadog | [DDOG] | $78.62 | -34% |
| Bill.com | [BILL] | $147.00 | -25% |
| Cloudflare | [NET] | $71.29 | -26% |
| Airbnb | [ABNB] | $142.73 | -35% |
| 10x Genomics | [TXG] | $137.25 | -32% |
| Snowflake | [SNOW] | $201.46 | -53% |
| Beyond Meat | [BYND] | $109.64 | -53% |
| Palantir | [PLTR] | $20.21 | -55% |
| Chewy | [CHWY] | $71.42 | -40% |
The ARK Innovation ETF [ARKK] stretches into a different direction. It attempts to track “disruptive innovation,” which it defines as a “technologically enabled new product or service that potentially changes the way the world works.” A rather modest goal. This baby is down 33% from its peak on February 12.
The ETF includes some very large stocks that have had a huge run, such as its largest holding, Tesla, which weighs over 10% in the ETF. Here are the largest five holdings and the drop from their highs:
| Stock | Price | % from high | |
| Tesla | [TSLA] | $617.20 | -31% |
| Teladoc | [TDOC] | $145.79 | -53% |
| Roku | [ROKU] | $314.12 | -35% |
| Square | [SQ] | $220.65 | -22% |
| Shopify | [SHOP] | $1,110.20 | -26% |
These stocks and ETFs here were in the most hyped crowd, and many of them had experienced gravity-defying and logic-defying ascents. And those stocks have now come unglued, one after the other, on their on terms, with different timing. And there wasn’t a single trigger.
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ARK, Cathie Wood is so full of crap, sometimes I wonder if she actually believes in her own hype or just selling it to her investors while getting’s is good. There’s been some speculation that ARK has some connection to Archegos as well, some shadiness going on there.
If any of these hype up SPACS pose a systemic threat to the financial market, I wouldn’t be surprise these jackals will start lining up to ask for a bail out or roll it into some kind of security for the FED to buy.
Amen !
FWIW, it’s looking like today is a good start for the whole “ungluing”.
Inflation is getting real to more people……5-10-30 yr going up some ….Covid is the black swan? Sure took a while if that’s going to be the case, stim or no stim.
But all that’s been said before….and sooner or later it’s going to be true.
Update. Gone with the wind today…I’ll never learn…Keynes was right……didn’t old time desert dwellers somewhere have some name for their insane desert winds??? (no not dust devils)
Exactly! Does anyone else get the feeling that we are in 1937 or early 1938? There are now too many, uninformed people risking their all in the stock market without true knowledge of the risks.
There are too many over-hyped companies that are bound to crash sooner or later and foreign pressure may speed that up. For example, while I am not a Musk-hater, what is going to happen to his companies in China was easily predictable to anyone who has seen what the CCP does to foreign companies there. The other aspect is how many over-valued US and multi-national brands are coming under increasing competitive pressure from CCP-subsidized companies.
Notice how the brands that used to sell us many products are slowly being replaced by Chinese brands like TLC? Lenovo, for example, undersells other computer makers.
Of course, all mainland-Chinese companies will drive all American and European technology companies out of business if allowed: how can a private American company compete against a Chinese company that gets ultra-low interest rate loans, government guarantees of its existence (because the CCP will step in to save it if it has penetrated a foreign market), quasi-slave labor from workers with few rights or benefits, utter disregard for polluting the environment or for safety of its workers or materials producers or the neighbors to its factories/raw-materials producers, etc.
If it were not for the fact that I do not trust anything built by the CCP gang, I might be running to buy those subsidized products myself. However, I would not be surprised if those computers, etc., start doing funny things (e.g., have built-in, security vulnerabilities or even sabotage-bombs) if the CCP ever needed to send a message to the USA.
Notice how certain products from China now require that you give your product WIFI access and create and log in to an account in China to “activate” them, which account then can download firmware or software updates regardless of your wishes? Where did they get the idea that Tesla cars can spy on their military bases if they are not using some of their products for the same object?
You forgotchild labor,tech/biz proprietary theft going back 40 years,cheating and fraud in the change to proprietary formulas of nonchinese products such as shampoo pet food,vitamins,etc.The audit/inspection process integrity is more of a farce than the American one.Made in China-Poorly,is a very enlightening,if old book. China has been spying on us through device camera and mics For Years,derrrr. Have not been following Tesla much other than selfdriving cars crashing and having Very Dangerous problems.Like to see more coverage of African co. Saith which purportedly had some energy and tech breakthroughs using radio energy waves.Thousands ofgas stations effected by pipeline disruption have no or limitted gas.Las week,Vegas had many problems of the Same type.wtfrick????
China and CCP are just one of the external factors we can blame but it is just a tiny corner of the iceberg. I will be more concerned over our children’s generations if we are scared of what is happening now. Just check how many of our US children are really in the field of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). In comparison, India and China are pumping out outstanding students in millions every year in the STEM field. Our smart kids are more active in finance and law to make quick&easy money, while China, India, Germany, Japan and Korea are busy producing real products. Needless to say, crisis is on the horizon and we just don’t know when it will burst. I wish I could buy products and services developed, designed and manufactured by our fellow US Americans, but sadly I couldn’t survive a single day!
US capitalism has no solid future plans or goals, outside of war and military, they just keep seeking profits. collapse is our future.
Education in the West needs a genuine & massive overhaul.
Today is today & not yesterday ..
Teachers have kicked back to a relaxed position.
Our teachers are not up to the task & kids education is poor as a result.
Not that I disagree with the need for state of the art learning equipment ..
There was an article a couple of years ago on Psychology Today USA .. crying the plight of students at poorly-funded schools & how they were never going to make it.
Great, tell this to the kids ..
“You Come From A Poor School .. You Are Never Going To Make It .. Never Going To Have Any Kind Of An Adequate Education .. Never succeed In The World As A Result .. Poor You .. Know This To Be True & Live Up To That Expectation.”
Was the attitude pumped to the kids every day in every little way .. “Fell Sorry For Yourselves & Live Up To That Expectation.”
If you do not tell children that they have a regular BRAIN & it is their BRAIN that needs to be fed or it will waste away kids will believe the above rubbish.
Schools need teachers with a can do attitude first & foremost.
As I responded.
Teachers are a red rage to me.
Some shadiness going on there? Cathie Wood, a “devout Christian”, is the CEO of Ark, as in “Noah get the ark!” might have ties to Archegos? (Christ is called “the archegos of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.”) And Hwang, whose father was a pastor, is also a “devout Christian”?
Note that I am not choosing the word “devout”, they are.
All these Biblical references in a realm that could not be any further from the teaching of Christ…I am no conspiracy nut, but it sounds like they are all connected by some freaky Christian cult.
When I heard the name Ark, it made me suspicious. Anytime region is invoked in business, you can expect it to be a scam. These people are just evil.
MLMs always include a religious angle.
Kathie Wood is steeped in the money business .. that’s not to say crooked is an inappropriate word when the bible bashers are in on the investment.
When someone starts proclaiming what a great Christian they are, hold onto your wallet.
Amen. It’s the Calvinist doctrine that pretty much pervades all USA protestant religions….a real have your cake and eat it, too sorta thing.
They probably feel they really ARE good Christians, when using that doctrine
All you need to do is look into those eyes of Cathie Wood and know she’s crazy. Don’t care if she’s crazy rich.
I use to watch Joyce Myers & Jesse Dubplates after midnight TV.
She was a great motivational speaker in her early years & Jesse is a wonderful story teller & they were raking it in.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Cathie Wood appears to be Bloomberg’s favorite guest as of late.
CNBC can’t stop mentioning her. She’s every mainstream business-and-finance media’s favorite. In this day and age, the viral jumping-on-youtube-social-media-celeb (social media celeb, Wood is) bandwaggon is widespread.
A couple of months ago their favorite was Chamath pushing his spacs.
Don’t watch Bloomberg much but CNBC is fascinating…25% useful (if you need to eat and can’t use the internet) and 75% insanely toxic (the endless parade of bullsh*t artists coming on to pump their schemes, with waaaay too little pushback from hosts/accomplices…a large fraction of whom are pretty economically ignorant themselves).
Anybody who can make an excellent market call isn’t going to CNBC to give out this advice for free. In general, CNBC content is a good contrarian indicator.
Not so long ago, CNBC hosts were laughing at Kathie Wood when TSLA was hated and thought to be going bankrupt.
Becky Quick is a pretty good host. Asks good questions. I watch the show all the time to see what the enemy is saying and doing.
Swamp,
CNBC does have *some* hosts who seem to have a grasp on economics but even a fair percentage of *them* often do little more than offer up a sardonic smirk at some of the horse manure being retailed by guests/co-hosts.
In general, the network is a hype machine by primary intent – even the wise hosts have to operate/survive within that eco-system.
As I said initially, about 25% of their info is benign or useful…but the rest leans heavily into the region of benighted or malign.
In certain ways…that’s even worse than CNN.
C127
Probably anathema to you guys but give RT’s ‘Boom Bust’ a whirl.
I find their contributors mainly ‘ace’
Same stn. as Max & Stace.
You heard it here first, don’t turn me in to CIA.
Probably her choice, having your face on TV reassures investors while prices are falling.
See Miller, Meeker, Heebner, Blodget.
Nothing new.
All of the above crashed and burned after outstanding winning streaks.
Anybody remember Janus funds debacle?
Yep…I remember it because it was right around the time the Fed started heavily pushing its “Inflation is Good” line of BS.
Old School, Tobias Carlysle made these comparisons ARK to Janues first and he may be right about this.
However, the drek that is “deep value” these days makes COINBASE look like a bargain. Do you want to own bed bath and beyond? There are going to be some huge winners among the general ARK garbage and it’s hard to pick up cheap value because it’s often just as overpriced (if not more so) than growth.
I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to look for a bed. They don’t sell beds in Bed, Bath & Beyond.
I’m on the sidelines just watching.. tending to my gardens and chickens.. took honey off the bee hives yesterday.. beautiful day yesterday getting a little rain today perfect for the garden. I’m very thankful..
Cmoore, that was a very nice, grounded comment that perfectly juxtaposed the shallowness and stupidity of the SPAC segment of the investment world with what actually makes life worth living. Nicely done!
Cmoore/Shane-and a good example of how the world (the countless millennia in development (incorporating multiple ‘disrupting’ extinction events) of this planetary, life-sustaining environment) REALLY works. Kudos.
(To repeat-breathable air doesn’t come from the sky. Freshwater doesn’t come from a tap. Food doesn’t come from a supermarket. These can all be economically gamed, but produced when really needed-not so much…).
may we all find a better day.
I feel like I can value four stocks that I know a lot about. They would all be considered value stocks. They are all priced to give you around a 5% return on a long term basis if everything goes right. That’s not enough return for me to risk hard earned money with. Better just to be patient and wait a few days, months, years.
Disruptive innovation has a history of being a losing strategy in my opinion. Buffet used the example of how life changing the automobile was and there were thousands of automobile companies. After 100 years with GM and Chrysler going bankrupt only Ford shareholders were left and market cap was very low.
Old School,
Warren was most likley talking up his GM stake. Every industry has competion and that’s why it’s important to have winners, such as coke and geico, in your portfolio. The future winners could very strange indeed, like airbnb and uber, you just never know.
But the winners are probably NOT going to be coke and geico.
If you own an index, you are guaranteed to at least own some winners, however diluted they may be.
It might of been a swipe at crypto. It’s a new technology with a lot of manic activity, but maybe one or two will survive.
And it will be called SPACKLE.
I want the Fed to announce a big buy of a basket of ARK, and Bitcoin so WR’s piece will be headed with the long version of WTF.
Seriously though, are these damn things like Tesla and BC systemically important enough that the Fed does worry about them? Would the Fed like BC to go to zero, removing a competitor for the greenback, or would the hit to the wealth effect worry it?
Such a big bubble, so many sharp pins.
Jees! BC down 10% as of 5:45 Pacific Time.
Do the BC fans understand YET that whatever BC is or isn’t, it can never be a currency. Buyer and seller can have different long- term views on the US$, Yen or euro, or gold, but they can use them as a medium of exchange knowing it is very unlikely that any would move more than one percent in a few hours.
Where did the money go that was invested in those high flying stocks when people sold.
Did they move to cyrptos of just other stocks like FAANG big guys?
You could add those real estate tech companies to the list too.
Like
EXPI = Down -65%
Zillow = – 40%
Redfin = -45%
then there are the retail stores companies that were about to go bankrupte but when up 300% to 500% because of COVID.
Like:
Overstock
Biglots
Kirklands
I’ve got a special edition reserved for the RE stocks, especially those that call themselves “tech” :-]
Looking forward to that! Consider including Better.com, reportedly about to IPO via SPAC
Count me as also eagerly awaiting a special edition report on RE stocks and anything else masquerading as “tech”. I have some suggestions that I won’t post here.
Count me in for three beers.
The “phunny money” actually DOES ever “phail” and DOES always “phail”.
Wolf, stocks are on the precipest now. They either bounce and continue with permanently high plateau (see amzn, nflx for 6-9 months plateau). Or they break down; then we average up on the short side.
You should have gone with a WTF chart at some point, except WTF in reverse.
The “phunny money” actually DOES ever “phail” and DOES always “phail”.
This was posted by a new user with the handle “C” I’m only pointing out that I have been using that handle for some time now. I am the “C” that has posted on Crypto so as not to confuse others. Can you please pick a new handle.
The real “C”
C
Wolf
I’d like to see something on the recent track record of REIT’s. My instructor in Hawaii had a lot to say about this group. I remember him saying they were a cash flow machine. All their income gets passed to the shareholders. What’s not to like about them? Especially now with 1 basis point yield on short term Treasuries.
I cover REITs occasionally.
Mortgage REITs blew up in late 2019 as part of, or triggering the repo market blowout. And I covered that. Baths were taken all around because that cash flow that was supposed to be passed through suddenly wasn’t there, and it was a matter of liquidity and survival.
Mall REITs I’ve already covered a bunch of times over the years. Two of them filed for bankruptcy in 2020. This is a tough lot, even for the best. They’ve been sending lots of malls back to the lenders.
Single-family rental REITs are on fairly solid ground. Apartment REITs are a different story.
So it all depends.
Swamp Creature,
I like equity REITs held in a Roth because it’s a way to get income that isn’t taxed at corporate or individual level. Good loophole for retirees who have a relatively short time horizon.
But you have to know the underlying business because they are not allowed to retain more than 10% of earnings so they are always dependent on debt financing so equity can get wiped out quickly if things go wrong.
Used to do 5 bucket portfolio with large cap, small cap, intl stock, govt bonds and final category REITs. Used vanguard Reit index then. Now REITs are in regular indexes so maybe not needed if you are an indexer.
“the money” didn’t go anywhere.
that’s not how stocks, or crypto, or any asset works.
they’re simply re-valuated.
you should consult your financial advisor.
“Where did the money go that was invested in those high flying stocks when people sold. ”
The way I understand it, prices are set at the margin, so if there are 1 million shares on the market, and I buy 1 for $10, then I’ve created a capitalization of $10 million.
If I get discouraged, and sell the share for $1, then the market has lost $9 million, even though only $11 have changed hands.
Of course, in a real market like SPACs, the numbers are bigger, and the losers lose more than the $9 I lost.
If I’ve got that right.
Exactly. Same thing with real estate.
Prices being set on the margin is what makes single stock manipulation possible like with Gamestop or entire market manipulation like with “paper” silver.
Yep…the dynamics of marginal pricing are waaay too underdiscussed.
“Market Caps” may arouse simulated tumescence among the CNBC crowd, but the fact is that at pricing peaks/troughs, those alleged tens of billions are being set by the most insanely optimistic, most hopelessly depressive, or most insidery corrupt – sans any external reality check.
Volume average weighting of share price levels might offset some of this…I wonder if any internet sites focus on that metric.
Where does the flame go when you blow out the candle?
And.. where did all those bits go when I erased my hard drive?
Same place your BofA bank account and IRA accounts went.
Yacht sales are booming.
Working on yachts is booming as well. Full speed at full list price, no eyes batted, no estimate refused. Different from most spring rushes I have seen in the past.
Maybe the big boys are buying up all the small motors to use as kickers. I had the hardest time finding a 20 hp motor in stock anywhere recently and I can see that it still going on. It’s weird.
I think I am ok with that. If a rich person buys a yacht it employees a lot of ordinary people. If government taxes it away and redistributes it there is a lot of government graft along the way.
OS, Yep. Definitely a good thing. A lot of skilled folks employed in north carolina building/repairing/improving them, and majority of the $ is from outside the state.
Yachts are like RVs for the rich. Expect an exodus of rich folks to tax havens around the world.
Where have you been,P?Many wealthy went to n.zealand last year while many went to Epsteins island or wherever,maybe Bimini,Seychelles,St.Kitts.
Of course and Dr Evil just bought one so big it needs a second support yacht to go with it. Seriously someone get this man sharks with laser beams already. Good time to celebrate your victory in squashing union effort by buying a yacht as the trophy price.
There’s never been a better time perhaps in history to be the super rich
Rich people make the same mistakes poor people make buying too much stuff on leverage on the way up. That ship is probably going to cost him $75 million a year to operate. Add in a few mansions and he needs $200 million cash a year to keep it all rolling. A stock market crash, wealth tax and another divorce and he might be a seller instead of a buyer.
Yes, and not just yachts but all types of vessels/personal watercraft. Good luck in getting a new yacht/superyacht built, better be the patient type.
RV sales/builds also way up.
Boats and RVs – can’t think of any other toys with steeper depreciation curves and higher maintenance and operation costs. Any guesses on how this buying spree is going to play out in a few years? LOL.
The money went from one bank account to another bank account.
I worked for a do-something-on-the-internets startup in the late 1990s. The company’s mission was to get to an IPO but it never had sales or revenue or a clue.
Most of the investor’s money was pissed away on rent, salaries, computers, art work, etc. A big portion went up the noses of the CEO and his girlfriend the COO. Maybe even a really big portion.
When the investors finally pulled the plug the CEO and COO left town in the middle of the night. But it wasn’t all a complete waste. The company bought quite a few expensive computer books for me, which I put to good use at my next gig.
I think by some measures nearly all the high tech start ups aren’t investing. They might be good for society, but bad for investing.
The fundamental style of investing was buying companies that had a long history of earnings and probably dividends too where things were fairly predictable. With ZIRP it has been more about believing the company can make money sometime way out in the future. Makes for a lot of speculation and losses for “investors”.
The amazing thing is that the VC trend for 5 or so years has been to push $100+ million funding rounds for red ink startups…the supposed theory being, I guess, to scare off any potential competitors through an aggressive display of financing/stupidity.
But this “model” ignores incrementalism, consumer acceptance, consumer uptake rates, the whole history of tech bubble 1.0, common sense, and much, much more.
It is like watching meth crazed lemmings sprint to the sea.
The thing that is “new” (since ~1985 or 1995?) is that the stock market/stock valuation/options, etc., are now basically a part of “cash flow”. That’s how the management (especially executives) get paid. They don’t get paid out of cash from ongoing operations. Salary’s not big- bonuses are.
I think this is part of the “weakness” of the accounting in the past few decades. Because the stock market has “always” pushed to new highs (and NASDAQ stocks BIG new highs- periodically), the management gets paid.
That’s what I have always thought was Amazon’s only hope- until they got into web hosting. I saw a report that many investment gurus say that AWS should be spun off. I have a feeling the Amazon execs are scared to death about that.
wkevinw,
I think a study came out today (U of WA?) that documented hundreds of changes in CEO compensation formulas among the SP 500, designed solely to hold CEO pay harmless from Covid impacts.
Needless to say, these same empty suit CEOs get higher pay automatically when ZIRP alone drives mkts higher.
Depending upon the scale of the fiddled Covid comp, you would think that CEOs/Boards might be exposed to shareholder liability.
It would be a hill to climb…but those insiders don’t want publicity…especially in aggregate, since that would inspire further forensic examination of other actions.
Sigh. I suppose concepts like this will never cease. In any transaction there’s always a buyer and seller. The money used to buy assets just transfers. The rate of transfer would be the volume times the price.
It didn’t go anywhere… There is no mystical pile of money sitting in an asset. There is only what someone is willing to buy it off you for, so that’s all it is. Poof. Bye bye value if suddenly no one wants to buy it.
In the background the same amount of money was there all along.
rhodium
I appreciate your effort and your bravery in trying to explain what some will likely NEVER seem capable of understanding.
Now that you can diversify into the SP500 or total stock market for next to nothing the easiest risk concept is buying the earnings stream of the entire economy. Unlike most stocks the SP500 will be around as long as there is an economy. People are paying about $4200 for $60 dividend stream with the rest of earnings reinvested to grow the payout. That’s slightly lower 1.4% vs 1.65% for 10 year Treasury, but dividends tend to increase. Whether people pay $1000 or $10000 the dividend stream is what it is and is the true long term value but of course most are not in it for the long term income, but the short term price increase which can be a decrease.
This is the flaw in central banks that they can inflate the price people pay, but can not inflate real income stream, so it’s an illusion of wealth, not real wealth.
Ru
Maybe they paid back their margin loans because they were scared ‘sh**less their rates would go up.
Great timely analysis.
I really dont know how you find the time to output the volume combined with quality on such a variety of subjects. Although fairly newish here I read and enjoy everything you write.
Thanks.
Some sectors will be hurt with higher inflation but in general at least in nominal terms stock prices as a whole should trend higher under inflationary conditions one would think? Not referring to the stocks you just mentioned, they so overpriced its kinda astonishing.
I think it all depends on what they do with interest rates when inflation stumbles into ‘out of control’. Mind you, there is no real economy beyond constructing things with free money, like new housing. The jobs report and employment stats are a joke. Steel, lumber, other metals, food, land are all becoming crazy overpriced.
The sooner this tanks, the more there will be left to salvage.
When my deadbeat neighbour down the roads starts to haul away her old broken cars for scrap, I’ll know the time of collapse is near. 10-12 years ago scrappers were pounding doors to salvage anything and everything metal. I’m still not seeing that yet beyond copper thefts from jobsites.
“The sooner this tanks, the more there will be left to salvage.”
This.
Unfortunately, the Fed/DC mindset is that *any* downward deviation from some purely hypothetical “optimal growth path” is a national emergency meriting Keynesian hysteria and/or wealth confiscation by means of monetary dilution.
Ditto any rise in interest rates above some “red line” set 60% lower than interest rates easily survivable in the 90’s.
The Fed/DC has taken what should have been a tremendous benefit (the historic supply surge in inexpensive inputs/goods coming from China) and turned it into a series of economic epileptic seizures driven by failed policy interventions.
AB
If inflation goes up, interest rates will have to go up.
If interest rates go up, stocks with hazy future earnings will be hammered, along with heavily indebted stocks.
Stocks with reliable near term earnings from essentials should be resilient to inflation, so long as they don’t have huge debts.
For 12yrs it’s been easier for Co’s to borrow money to buy back their own stock than it has been to make money from investing in new projects. Proper interest rates should lead to proper investment.
I think you are right, but if rates do go up substantially, it is going to be a shitshow of epic proportions. Every segment of this economy is going to go off the tracks.
Governments, both Federal and State are going to have to raise taxes like nothing you have ever seen to finance their massive debts and spending. And what will happen to pension funds will end many peoples dreams of secure retirement….
It’s only a matter of time, before Tesla crashes at least 90%. It’s so insanely over valued, not even worth further comment on it.
The markets have warped people perceptions and expectations so horrendously, that it will take a 3 decade bear market to unwind all the hype and excesses, and to get rid of at least 2 generations of investors who refuse to believe stocks not only go up, but go down. And down a lot for years. Most of this heavily warped and unhinged thinking is due directly to the Feds recklessness, principally started by Alan Greenspan.
This year would be the time for a massive shake out in stocks to begin in earnest, after one last blow off top that sucks every last Joe into it.
That depends. If Musk actually accomplishes what he’s set out to do, he will own transportation and power. And he has so much freaking money it’s entirely possible. They’re so rich now they don’t even really have to innovate on their own. They can just sit there and buy up whatever emerging tech meets their goals.
Doubtful. Musk is already in China’s doghouse, their product pipeline is stagnant, they only make money on idiotic carbon credits, and the stock is massively overvalued because fanboys can’t do math.
What’s hilarious is CA wants to go full-electric by xx-date, which will tax their grid even more, but they can’t even keep the lights on now. It’s all written on the wall, but idiots can’t read.
With you RS
This electric car thing is going to be the biggest fiasco ever when they add all that 0 to 60mph to the grid and discover that it all disappears in cable losses and charging losses and sudden peak demand on coal and gas stations churning out massive concentrated pollution but don’t dent the PR please.
History tells us that printing money results in these asset bubbles especially stock bubbles. The next phase whenever it comes is how could I have been so stupid to buy that stock with my hard earned money.
A few perp walks and a few CEOs and the Fed chair in front of the Banking Committee to explain how it all went wrong.
OS – hey, no one could see it coming!
I think Jack Banks has a point here. This Musk guy started investing in crypto and makes a killing in a market where a bunch of kids overhype things and hold the bags.
The name of the game is profit, not invention.
A 3 decade bear market? No, all that is needed is a 5 % interest rate. And all these valuations will be toast.
3.2% 10 yrs by Fall of 2018 were enough to tank the market by 20%…and send the Fed hysterically back to the (Covid) bat cave.
If the Fed has anything resembling a “plan” (beyond lobotomized twitch survival instinct in the immediate instant) it can only wait for the ideal moment to expropriate the paper millionaires it has manufactured/lured into the mkt.
Gvts are past masters of these sort of Heads we win/tails we win set-ups.
The citizens just live on gerbil wheels of gvt construction.
I’d be perfectly fine with Tesla crashing 90%…..but of course, if thats happening, all other stocks are also crashing and we’re entering another global financial crisis of epic proportions. But yea…. buy low, sell high!
There is a medical-pharma weirdness to the glue market too. Take horses for example. All steroidy and stuff. Is there not a fair race out there among jockeys? The prevailing trifecta appears to be the Heart, Mind and Soul. But chime in if anyone feels, thinks or prays different. I’m interested in how you handicap this thing, if it is a thing…
It was pica grams And it was not performance enhancing. Don’t compare the markets to horse racing. The “steroids”in the markets count on greedy players
Got news for you, the participants in horse racing , the rides put health and life on the line the horses ,want to win and show heart. The jackals behind the markets have none . As an aside horse racing is strictly monitored for cheating and those caught are punished. So once again the two should not be compared
“On September 11, 2019, The New York Times reported that Triple Crown winner Justify failed a drug test for scopolamine after winning the Santa Anita Derby. The amount detected was 300 nanograms per milliliter — well in excess of the international standard of 60 ng/ml and the modified limit in California of 75 ng/ml. According to the veterinarian quoted in the New York Times article, the excessive amount detected suggested that it was used as a performance enhancer and was not simply a feed contaminant…”wiki
I don’t have a pic with a handle to care about horses, except in a famous book they do all the work and get rewarded with a trip to the glue factory. That’s the analogy I’m most comfortable with.
Typical. They allow more in California.
I love the excellent roofing-related content as a bonus.
The stamping press installation? I didn’t know if everyone sees the same ad content. That was fascinating, I used to deliver components to some industrial sites like that while they were under construction. It takes a bunch of smart, experienced workers to put something like that together.
Jeff Roddick,
Everyone can see this particular video, right above the comments.
Thanks MarMar and Jeff. I’m with the metal roofing manufacturer. As a mid-sized business, we love supporting the great information that Wolf consistently delivers. Yes, we’re very fortunate to have an excellent rigging company located in our town of 20,000 who always makes themselves available to help with our equipment move-ins as well as tear-downs for repairs and maintenance. They are absolutely amazing to watch in action.
My neighbor put on a metal roof several years ago. It looks like copper. If it is his roof is probably worth more than it cost him.
I actually would have liked to see some/more of the actual stamping process (I couldn’t make it through the whole video…all I saw was machine building and transport).
In WW 2, the “arsenal of democracy” leaned heavily on stamping processes to quickly manufacture an overwhelming number of weapons cheaply (see the famous “grease gun”).
If the US is going to ever have a chance to claw back any of China’s manufacturing dominance, my guess is that some modern version of stamping processes is going to have to play a major role.
Without cheap, high volume output of manufactured goods, the US is out of the game.
All those millions of promised biotech engineers and space travel specialists never arose as America deindustrialized over the last decades…and they ain’t going to be showing up any time soon.
Unless America starts making things more (and making things up, less) the country is finished.
Plenty of biotech engineers/scientists.They work at universities,co.s.,Military/cia/darpa locales,maybe nasa,too.Scoop the cream of the crop out of science,tech,engineering.Think there was a movie or book years ago about all the missing scientists/techies.
It’s worse. America quit making the machines that make machines. Know many kids that want to be toolmakers or diemakers?
Lisa,
A major part of the problem is that kids (who tend to be naturally curious about a great many things) are not even exposed to the concepts of toolmaking/diemaking/manufacturing in general.
Certainly not in school…where, if anything, the syllabus looks most like the arrogantly detached syllabus of late 19th century English low aristocracy/upper gentry (sans Latin and greek).
The irony is that the kids might be better off being left to watch episodes of “How It’s Made” or “Modern Marvels” (at least to pique their interest).
We could call them “Discovery (Channel) Schools”
Youtube has a decent amount of people making things. Makerspaces. Forging. 3d printing both using UV cured resins and plastic fed machines. CNC machines. Schools have these things in some capacity. Not sure there is a lot of jobs to absorb it afterwards, and not sure how widespread the exposure is.
Of course the last bit of parts I ordered for my CNC machine.. was straight from China.
Ethan,
Perhaps a key element that is also missing is a focus upon efficient (and therefore cheaper) *mass* production.
I think this implicates design simplicity as well.
The makerspaces/additive 3d printers are interesting but not really focused upon *mass* production (sorta the opposite in fact…they are great for highly customized, one off production).
In the final analysis, I do think CNC is key…China-beating mass production cannot rely on lowest labor costs (China or some other LDN will always have us beat there) so CNC is crucial for reducing labor costs (so reshoring manufacturing won’t solve all of America’s labor problems).
It is interesting that for all the focus on “learning to code” very little is heard about CNC.
When they raid the brothel, they take the piano player too
I thought “the most hyped corner of the stock market” was the psychedelic worship of Fed monetary God on Earth J-Pow. Monkey Spac J-Pow will need to buy some ARK to weather the coming flood of inflation via monetary madness…
How genius and confident is J-Pow you ask??? Feel the full force of the almighty Fed in his response to why driving housing prices to the stratosphere via MBS purchases will continue indefinately:
“Yeah. I mean, we started buying MBS because the mortgage-backed security market was really experiencing severe dysfunction, and we’ve sort of articulated, you know, what our exit path is from that. It’s not meant to provide direct assistance to the housing market. That was never the intent. It was really just to keep that as, it’s a very close relation to the Treasury market, and a very important market on its own. And so, that’s why we bought as we did during the global financial crisis. We bought MBS, too. Again, not intention to send help to the housing market, which was really not a problem this time at all. So, and, you know, it’s a situation where we will taper asset purchases when the time comes to do that, and those purchases will come to zero over time. And that time is not yet.”
“Yeah. I mean, we started buying MBS because the mortgage-backed security market was really experiencing severe dysfunction…”
Hey Jerome, I’m experiencing some dysfunction. Can I get me some free trillions form you?
“Again, not intention to send help to the housing market, which was really not a problem this time at all.”
So he’s saying he had to help the “market” but “housing” or “housing market.” That’s a profound difference, Mr Powell. So he’s saying, “market” is important not so much what it sells/makes? So we can tell the homeless to just chill because the market is doing just fine now.
Priorities.
“So, and, you know, it’s a situation where we will taper asset purchases when the time comes to do that, and those purchases will come to zero over time. And that time is not yet.”
If “housing” is roaring and “markets” are roaring but it’s not time to taper, it’s not hard to get to the point of realizing that the actual time to taper is:
NEVER
Timbers
I know it’s incredibly hard to believe but these guys have been pumping billions into the economy for 12 years because, in their eyes, the overall ‘Gdp deflator’ measure of inflation has never topped their ‘magic’ 2%. This means they have never seen the country as running at it’s optimum level since 2008 and have been trying to ‘boost’ it. Everybody knows the money has ended up in all the ‘wrong’ places whether by intent or not.
Now it is beginning to look like they may have gone ‘way over the top’ and shot past 2%. If that is the case we should all see quite soon if they are actually any good at their job and can keep within the 2% bound by tightening all sources of money ie higher rates.
I remember the day in 1998 when AOL reached a larger market cap than General Motors. I didn’t know much then (or now) but I knew something was out of whack. Fast forward to 2021 and “out of whack” now seems like a naively tame assessment. Just sayin’.
What was said above about markets being set on the margin is important because this is the mechanism that will lead to what will be called deflation. Bets placed with margin loans accelerate any downward price action as each incremental transaction drops the value of the entire market.
Deflation in this sense is a reverse wealth effect. In market declines, this reverse wealth effect cascades through the financial markets, which lowers the prices of real things, while also changing people’s expectations. These perceptions are the most important factor in market performance, even more than fundamentals as the last ten years have shown.
The wealth effect trickles down when markets are on the way up but becomes a poverty effect that cascades down in market declines.
Where does the money go? It vanishes into thin air. If four or seven trillion $ of “wealth” evaporates from financial assets it could actually make the fed’s job easier by removing some of the “money” they created and lessening the need to remove the punch bowl, so to speak, because the punch in the bowl is rapidly boiling off.
I suspect that deflation is the end game. And it is a game.
So Jerome is Satoshi Nakamoto in drag and plans on sucking all the Fed created money into Bitcoin and dropping the value to zero? Problem solved.
Jerome: “Say hello to my lettle frien …….. the law confiscating Bitcoin.”
That would slurp a trillion or so out of the system.
The fact that the authorities have done nothing to curtail the development of alternative currencies shows that they approve, for some reason, like maybe they are in on it.
The relatively illiquid crypto market is easily manipulated for profit at the margin (and with futures), crypto can also be used to move the proceeds of crime, and it is a substitute for precious metals as a hedge against inflation, siphoning off demand for metals.. Whats not to love for a central banker.
‘like maybe they are in on it.’
Otis nails it, IMO.
If it didn’t suit the gov’t, they would do something about it.
Agreed….
– successful in mopping up speculative liquidity
– we don’t know how many coins they control because there is no regulated disclosure.
– it that draws liquidity away from more tangible inflationary investment such as natural resources.
– it makes sense for Elon to promote crypto, so Tesla manufacturing costs don’t skyrocket.
– if we all bought silver they would otherwise have to make it illegal to own, but that would create another set of problems.
“The fact that the authorities have done nothing to curtail the development of alternative currencies shows that they approve”
I think it’s just the typical case of an established monopoly underestimating, or not even seeing, the risk of major disruption by something new and unknown to it. Like Microsoft blindsided by that Internet thing in the 90s, or Intel missing the portable smart device era in the 2000s.
It’s probably the biggest risk to the USD hegemony. An entirely new banking and finance ecosystem free from the friction of moving away from the USD may emerge.
Intosh-well observed. The universal hubris, business/national/ethnic wherein initial success leads to exchanging regular, frank SWOT analyses for a general ‘exceptionalism’.
may we all find a better day.
Might be helpful for some to clarify that the term “margin” has a synonym in finance.
“At the margin” means on the edge, or the next incremental transaction.
“On margin” means partially, or a transaction financed with a loan from a broker to increase leverage.
Homonym, even.
Deflation isn’t the end game. Its the underlying natural process that has terrified banks and governments for years. That’s why they desperately want to inflate. Japan has been desperately fighting deflation for 30 years.
Debt deflation is the usual transmission mechanism for a deflationary shock but it should not be considered a primary cause.
The first stage is excess credit and money supply.
The excess credit and money phenomenon can last years before the bubble pops. The people who have money and power will stave off deflation any way they can, even if they have to drag down everyone else with them. This just digs a bigger hole.
Some trigger event finally wakes people up even though the set-up has been in plain view for a long time. The trigger could be anything.
Deflation events are like snow flakes. No two are the same.
Deflation of non-self-liquidating credit is probably more harmful. Think of all the derivatives, margin debt, student loans, consumer loans, etc. Is anyone thinking about the vaporization of money when the rent and mortgage moratorium expires?
As Mises said, there is no graceful exit from here.
Spot on MG
It started with Japan and now it’s spreading further afield.
As Marx wrote, Capitalism tends to over-production and then stagnation because investment opportunity dries up. Asia may escape because they are less maturely Capitalist than we are.
I agree it is a cycle.
Ortizshertz said: “Where does the money go? It vanishes into thin air.”
__________________________________
Value is not money. Value is always subject to change, up or down, based on market participants willingness to trade dollars for the asset(s) in question. The FED as a market participant, with their use of newly created digitized dollars is the ultimate destroyer of free markets.
Expected Value denominated in dollars can vanish but existing dollars in the system do not vanish based on falling asset prices.
That is why, when the rubber meets the pavement, it is helpful to know how many dollars are in existence, who owns them and where they are.
The metal roofing ad on this page makes me wonder if, considering the insane price of lumber, steel homes would be something to consider now.
Maybe, except steel prices have doubled+ recently. Not as bad as lumber, but a lot.
That’s why inflation numbers came in hot, they can’t even find substitutes that haven’t gone up in price.
Meat goes up, substitute with chicken oops chicken is up too, substitute with dog food, oops that’s up even more.
Wood is up, substitute with steel, steel is up too, who needs a house anyway, take them out of the basket altogether.
The best way to build is with high performance concrete or SCC and rigid foam centered in the wall. You need an advanced form system to accommodate an architectural/decorative finish on both sides of the wall. I’m currently developing a mold system that can be re-positioned on the wall sections vertically and be cast in 500 lb batches mixed on site. Plumbing and electrical is cast internally as well.
Once people re-examine assumptions about how housing “has to” be built (lumber stick skeletons with drywall sandwiches hiding water/power conduits, etc.) a lot of cheaper possibilities become at least conceivable.
To take just one idea from left field…the manufacturing/installation of advanced fabrics is infinitely faster/cheaper than the manufacture/installation of drywall slabs hung on lumber frames.
And could people live with external conduit runs, if it would knock 15% off housing prices?
St
I tried for years, when I was young, to get the steel added to the concrete as ‘needles’ in the mixer, everybody laughed at me and thought I was nuts. China has been doing it for ages now. Saves huge time and money.
Best of luck with your project, don’t give up.
It is amazing to me how long something as simple/obvious as panelization has taken to make fair inroads into the mkt.
It is like builders don’t care that much to closely monitor costs…which they don’t, since the gutting of interest rates has allowed them to double prices on the same house from 2000 to today…without affecting affordability (see ZIRP) and therefore demand.
The Fed’s multi-decade ZIRP has done nothing but…
1) Make builders very, very rich
2) Turned residential real estate into a unstable casino wholly dependent upon phonied up interest rates (and the inflation they cause)
3) Add *zero* incremental affordability to housing, despite 20 years of halved interest rates.
4) Install a gigantic trap door below Americans’ largest investment…now utterly hostage to the inescapable reality that US rates must eventually rise given its degraded perception and other nations’ soaring productive superiority
I thought it was just me because I recently bought a large order of steel roofing (for me) and figured the surveillance algos recorded my browsing and purchase history. whew……
Problem with steel is it rusts, what really surprises me is why they have not started making composite plastic lumber. I suppose until now, lumber has been so cheap, alternatives have not been cost effective…
jd
I believe re-cycled plastic railway sleepers are being tried out, which seems like a perfect ‘Green’ planet solution to me, but maybe rabbits won’t like them.
My puppy enjoys eating railway sleepers, carried half a 12 inch length across the garden in her mouth. But she much prefers chewing plastic.
Jdog, some decking materials are synthetic and here in Texas we have had “hardiplank”, a concrete/fiber mix for siding, trim, etc for a long time.
All ”cold rolled” steel framing for roofs above and interior framing inside concrete block has been used for some houses in FL, likely elsewhere for at least the last 20 years.
Some of the houses also have all metal roofing, so no wood whatsoever except for doors and trim, and even those are mostly done in ”composites” of one sort or another these days.
Commercial construction everywhere has been almost all steel studs, ”hat channel”, bar joists with steel decking then lightweight concrete for floors and some roofs, etc., for even longer.
Wood frame subject to rot and termites especially as most ”drywall” AKA gypsum board is held together with paper AKA termite candy.
“And those stocks have now come unglued, one after the other, on their on terms, with different timing.”
Ignorance speaking here, but has the day of the ‘unicorn’ gone away? Or are investors getting wiser?
Quick – Jay Powell to print gasoline!
I hate to say this but this is not evidence of the market deflating. It’s just the crowd moving onto the latest shiny ball, cryptocurrencies.
It’s not a coincidence that just as the favorite stocks of the retail/WSB/Robinhood crowd go down, the cryptos are exploding.
The overall amount of money in the market hasn’t shrunk. They’re just shifting their asset allocation strategies (if that’s what you call YOLO’ing your life savings from Tesla into Dogecoin because of a tweet…)
The markets won’t deflate until the buyer of last resort, the Fed, starts tightening, and that ain’t happening this year, if ever. The people who control the Fed would rather have the entire country destroyed than see their net worth drop by 5%. After all, they can move to a new country as fast as they can gas up their private jet, but how are they supposed to get erections if they no longer have a billion dollar bank balance to masturbate to?
+1. The Fed crowd can always escape to New Zealand. Mark Z will decamp to Hawaii, etc, etc.
Wait till the conflict is over and then come back and do it again.
I wish I can put up the Admiral Akbar meme here: “it’s a trap!!!”
My prediction turned out right again. What inflation? Stock markets rallying again.
INTC is down 20%, in one month, from Apr 2021 high, reaching
dma200.
ARK sells the individual stock and then buys its own ETF. My head still spins on that. The ? and crazy eyes are the dead give away. LOL LOL ??
Well, regardless of what coming unglued on the stock market, the real market is really unglued. The latest seasonally, as of May 12, 2021 shows real average hourly earnings -3.7 and the CPI for urban dwellers +4.2. Now that 7.9 gap ain’t looking too good for the real world of wage earners in general across the US.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.t01.htm
Hopefully the BIS is more relevant than the CDC stats.
There is another one worth a comment :
Ten+ years on the making Richard Branson ́s SPCE.
The graphs show a nice clear correlation. Companies that really do or make something are down 30%. Companies that don’t really exist are down 80%.
A savvy article – but it’s nothing to celebrate.
Wild speculation was very good for one thing…
…reducing the velocity of money.
Profit-taking that unleashes massive amounts of cash into the real economy to chase the purchase of tangible goods is the *very last thing* we need at the moment
T was generally business friendly with fewer regs and corporate tax cut that went straight to the E in the PxE valuation. If B gets his corporate tax that’s 7% off of the E which should be good for 7% drop once market believes it is done deal. B is looking out more for public employees and trying to boost wages. It’s a fine line. Wage increases are negatively correlated to profit margins so E can call more. Business is not charity work and has to right size to stay viable.
Google,thank you for scanning long-forgotten books !
Flashbacks from England,early XVIII century:
1.About the non-stop Fed QE:
This was a great disappointment to the Earl of Oxford and his party, who were reminded much oftener than they found agreeable of the:
”Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus.“
2.About SPAC:
But the most absurd and preposterous of all, and which shewed, more completely than any other, the utter madness of the people, was one started by an unknown adventurer, entitled:
“A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.”
Were not the fact stated by scores of credible witnesses, it would be impossible to believe that any person could have been duped by such a project.
3.About the general moral climate:
During the progress of this famous bubble, England presented a singular spectacle. The public mind was in a state of unwholesome fermentation. MEN WERE NO LONGER SATISFIED WITH THE SLOW BUT SURE PROFITS OF CAUTIOUS INDUSTRY. The hope of boundless wealth for the morrow made them heedless and extravagant for to-day. A luxury, till then unheard-of, was introduced, bringing in its train a corresponding laxity of morals. The over-bearing insolence of ignorant men, who had arisen to sudden wealth by successful gambling, made men of true gentility of mind and manners blush that gold should have power to raise the unworthy in the scale of society.
Brent-superb.
may we all find a better day.
?
Here is another glittering pearl:
4.About cryptos which are the Future and poised to change everything:
“One of the most famous Bubbles was “Puckle’s Machine Company,” for discharging round and square Cannon-balls and Bullets, and making a total Revolution in the Art of War.”
When this company went belly up down the sh… creek one disrespectful wag wrote epitaph:
“A rare Invention to destroy the Crowd
Of Fools at home, instead of Fools abroad.
Fear not, my Friends, this terrible Machine
They’re only wounded who have Shares therein.”
It is such an enlightening experience to read 300 years old books from archive.org
Letter “s” looks like 6″ tall cobra, nouns are capitalized with letter “e” appended – “Moneye”,” Towne”…
But some things never change…
Brent
How would you like to have the Dna of that land in your bones. No chance of me buying Tesla.
Nah,I am a faded,3rd generation Kraut.And majority of my friends are Micks.Paraphrasing old proverb “Oppressed Birds of Feather flock together”.
F… Tesla.
Soon we gonna be like VC soldiers,we gonna travel by foot & live off the Land ?
The VC had pretty good logistics support from industrialized cities in the North. And “friends” even further north.
LH-amen. And the value-added of fighting on/for their own territory (EZ-brothers and folks, just recalling when ‘self-determination of peoples’ was a professed, yes, mostly in the breach, component of U.S. foreign policy…to paraphrase an old saying, ‘…no nation is free save it free itself…’ (definition of ‘free’ being an immensely-fungible term-‘independent’ probably more-accurate)).
may we all find a better day.
Yo, Calvary – I remember telling a friend almost twenty years ago regarding Afghanistan – we’re going to have a problem because it’s their dirt, not ours.
You are a funny guy Brent.
I like that.
is this roller coaster effect not in the nature of the “hype” itself? boom, bust, boom, bust…
1) Colonial pipeline disruption showed the need for major infrastructure.
2) Executive order to cancel XL pipeline have expired after 100 days.
3) Paper oil speculators will send Crude Oil Futures higher. In the next few quarters oil co will report higher profit.
4) In order to finance the new infrastructure the gov will raise taxes on oil co, while renewable will have negative tax rate, a gov incentive.
5) Oil co will have a cause to switch to renewable, to replace the easy to extract carbs energy.
6) Within few years oil co will diversify themselves, making more profit on
renewable with negative taxes than carbs energy with high taxes.
7) Mini nukes will dot remote areas in US, providing energy without pipelines, to support small communities.
mini-nukes?
More likely, increasingly cheap wind/solar farms with battery backup.
Yup, this is close to being the cheapest electricity source, by far. And you can start small and build modularly.
@Michael Engler
This is *TOO* funny….
1) American population gets a whiff of inflation…. (happening already)
2) Democrats take a beating at the polls during the mid-terms that would make Keir Starmer blush…
3) GOP back in power…
4) Drill, baby, drill….
Oil company execs are simply trying to avoid big judgements against them in Climate Change lawsuits in the interim.
“Diversify themselves” you say? That would require *investment* and every dollar spent on CapEx is a dollar *not spent* on buybacks (and, thus, theselves)
Agreed. Capex is always iffy. Buybacks are a known.
Mini nukes will never happen in a country full of environmentalists and buffoons in the Gov. Natural gas will prevail.
AA
Yup! and mini gas turbines in the home will combine heating and 50v DC electricity with no massive grid dangers or losses. It will even ‘sensibly’ charge your electric car. They can’t be idiots for ever can they? Sorry I’m too old to see it.
Investing in the heavily hyped assets is more similar to making a living playing sports than most are willing to admit. You can make a lot of money without relying on luck, it’s just that you have to be better at the game than the competition. I’m no good at predicting what will gain popularity next, so I stay as far away as possible from investing in these things. For me, this type of investing is too data-intensive, and it seems like Big Data has an advantage. Analyzing what millions of people are doing, what they’re talking about, what’s trending, and how their preferences change over time, is likely to give you an edge.
One of the most common arguments you hear in favor in crypto is that there’s no need to be for or against it, just add a little bit to your portfolio as an insurance policy. A few corporations (the best known is Tesla) made a decision to invest a few percent of their cash in bitcoin based on this idea. The trick in the argument is that it distracts you from what crypto really is: it’s a sport like golf and poker and it depends on your skill in playing the game. Over time, the popularity of the coin you hold must increase fast enough to offset the cost of the infrastructure and energy use needed to sustain it.
The insurance argument is reminiscent of Blaise Pascal’s argument for believing in God. The flaw, of course, is that I can make up another 25 new religions tomorrow and you have to believe in all these religions because it makes sense as an insurance policy. I can also make up 25 new cryptos tomorrow, and tell you that you need them for insurance.
There is exactly one valid argument for buying a cryptocurrency: You are confident that you can beat others in a game that’s very similar to what Big Tech has already mastered: treat human beings as dumb predictable robots and make tons of money taking advantage of their predictable behavior.
“There is exactly one valid argument for buying a cryptocurrency: You are confident that you can beat others in a game that’s very similar to what Big Tech has already mastered: treat human beings as dumb predictable robots and make tons of money taking advantage of their predictable behavior.”
That’s a great nutshell summary of the reality. I would add, however, that unfortunately, most human beings are dumb predictable robots. So Big Tech is merely doing what leaders and shamans of society have always done.
“most human beings are dumb predictable robots”
On who else’s back would some build (literally and figuratively) kingdoms?
Why view the politically degraded/habitually diluted US dollar any differently than Crypto subject to whim…USD is equally vulnerable to perceptions…and the Fed printers have made sure the USD has a bad perception now.
Crypto is Crypto but the USD has become Sleazo.
The longer crypto is around the more time people have to consider that the concept of money as a store of value is defunct. This is part of the reason for the rush into assets, people are selling cash. There are a lot of big bets against the dollar, when that turns down there may be no turning back. You could shut down bitcoin, but it isn’t going anywhere. It’s an outlaw currency. The specious argument made about surging markets is they can’t go any higher. Ultimately investors are going to take those huge profits they made on bitcoin and buy hyperinflated assets. When you look back at those Dow 10000 hats you go wow. There were two things wrong with the dotcom, one was the B2B mania, for services which lacked consumer scalability, and as Drunkenmiller notes, companies were hyped on products that were building the internet and the internet was already built. In the here and now we have companies basically working inefficiencies out of the economy, synergies, and investors comparing them to those dotcom brethren. The real problem is the market shifting away from the Fed and monetary policy. Wall St likes it accommodations.
The question all crypto investors have to ask themselves is the hacking of oil pipeline a canary in coal mine. Without crypto’s hackers can’t get paid, without gasoline non crypto investor’s get mad at their government. One easy fix for the government to show they are doing something is to slow the exchange of crypo.
Ambrose Bierce said: “Ultimately investors are going to take those huge profits they made on bitcoin and buy hyperinflated assets”
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Only if there exists a buyer willing to trade dollars or other assets for bitcoin. “Profits” often prove to be illusory and fleeting.
There’s a difference. Both crypto and fiat have no intrinsic value but crypto is backed by the full faith of greater fools, whereas fiat is backed by the full faith and credit of countries that use debt slaves.
I have more faith in a bottle of vodka holding its value. I just wish I could stop drinking my store of value.
I recall talking to refugees who escaped eastern Europe after WW 2. They had jewelry sewn into their coats. Well, when there’s no food guess what? You’ll trade a diamond for a can of beans.
IMHO a little crypto could be useful if you have to bug out. Cash and gold are not easy to transport across international boundaries and your ATM or credit card access can be denied. However you can take your crypto anywhere and no one can stop you.
You can also leave your crypto to your kids without estate taxes or probate. “Gosh, all Dad left me was this piece of paper with some lines of gibberish “.
It is entertaining, sorta, to observe the madness of crowds in real time. The same herd behavior dynamics drive both the itch to buy stocks and the irresistible urge to wait for hours to buy gasoline.
I speculate the underlying emotion is fear. Everybody instinctively understands that the Devil takes the hindmost. Endless social messages tell us to be Winners! at the front of the herd; don’t be left behind. Compete or be crushed.
The original Devils would’ve been Lions, Tigers, and Bears. The modern Devils are empty bank accounts, Repo men, process servers, and eviction squads. Personally, I know how to deal with wild animals. Eviction squads, not so much.
Sue the FED for destroying the middle class!
We deserve sound money!
END THE FED!!!
Chewy datadog meat beyond snowflake uber clouldflare.
1) QQQ built a small inverse H&S between Feb and Mar.
2) QQQ might form a large inverse H&S with a rising neckline between
Feb 16 high and Apr 16.
3) The LS is on Jan 29 low. The RS will come soon.
4) It might fail.
Hemlines continue in volatility.
In other news: Softbank, which reported a paper profit of $45.88 billion for year ended March, is looking to “SPAC up” its WeWork and Grab bets.
So it’s still game on to some…
A lot of the stocks listed above are still way up despite recent losses.
[Warning – talking my book to follow. I will indicate whenever I own a particular stock. I’m not trying to tout these stocks but they are what I know and can use as examples]
I think a lot of the companies in the IPO basket above have good business models, solid business bases and bright futures. Interesting about “unglued” in the article’s title since many of the above are what I call “internet glue” stocks. They work behind the scenes making e-commerce possible. They glue e-commerce together.
When you pay an online vendor someone has to manage the sales transaction, handle the movement of money from your credit card to the seller, and ensure security. You might never have heard of Shopify but I’ll bet your money has passed through it as well as Crowdstrike. I own Crowdstrike (and Okta but not zScaler).
The second reason I call them glue stocks is because once you’ve started using their products it’s cumbersome and complicated to switch. They tend to be sticky.
In my medical practice I used glue (sticky) products. I had billing software, a service to submit claims to insurance and other services. Billing software is vertical. When we switched from one product to another we were going from one proprietary database format to another and believe me, it was NOT seamless (or inexpensive) converting the data. Also had to train my staff to use the new software. Someone would have to threaten to kill my children before I went through that again.
Electronic medical records with integrated billing, scheduling, clinical data storage, etc are more like roach motels than glue. Your practice goes in but never comes out. I am proud to say that in 42 years I never used an EMR. It’s the only medical product I can think of that required government coercion for adoption.
I own several of the companies listed above so I’ll just focus on a couple that I’ve owned the longest for illustration. If you bought ZM 2 years ago you still have a huge gain. Same for others such as SHOP. If you bought them 6 months ago, my condolences on your *temporary* loss.
These are highly volatile stocks that can often get out over the tips of their skis but they have solid business models and actual customers.
I bought ZM and SHOP less than 2 years ago (I wish I’d bought them much earlier). I’m not happy about the recent price drop, but if you don’t have the stomach for volatility don’t buy these companies. If you don’t have the patience for the rest of the world to catch up for a few years, don’t buy these companies.
5 years ago Shopify was under $30. In 2019 when I got in it was between $300 and $400. I still wonder what I was drinking that made me decide to pay that much. It peaked at about $1500 and is now around $1100. Am I pissed about being up 3x in less than 2 years instead of 4x? Please hurt me like that with my other stocks.
Shopify is inexpensive for a vendor to use and offers an extensive set of products for e-commerce. It’s hard to switch from a suite of services like that. It’s a classic internet glue stock in both senses of the word. It’s not going away.
When I bought Zoom 2 years ago I never expected covid. That was a gift. I was about to sell Zoom at the end of 2019 but decided to give it some more time. I got in at about $95 and at the end of 2019 it had dwindled to less than $70. My trailing stops were screaming at me but I had faith in the business model and I had owned it maybe 6 months.
Even at the onset of quarantine it was only beginning to warm up – maybe $90 around April 2020. It peaked at $560 or so and now it’s down by half. Poor me. I’m only up about 2.5x. May the Lord continue to punish me with 2-baggers after less than 2 years.
If you bought the high I think in 3 years or so you’ll be happy you didn’t sell. Crowdstrike, Bill.com, Cloudfare, Data Dog and others have good business models and good prospects. I just bought some of each. I have set an allocation goal for each, and every quarter I buy another 25% of my projected total purchase. Given the volatility I’m taking a cost-averaging approach.
Roku continues to puzzle me but I also own DIS as well. I cut the cable 5 years ago and tried several streaming boxes before settling in with Roku and Netflix. No matter what the market says about these two services I haven’t found a better combo. I own Roku but not Netflix. I don’t know why I never bought Netflix. I love the content and the interface. I have Amazon Prime but I don’t like the free Amazon Video that comes with it.
AirBnB will survive. I just bought some.
The internet isn’t going away any time soon. I think Zoom use may fall off after covid but it won’t go away. I get endless email notifications from hospital systems about Zoom calls. They have multiple facilities all over Houston with thousands of doctors. If you can meet with them all at once it sure saves a lot of time and money. And the medical staff definitely appreciates being able to attend without driving to the hospital for a meeting before going home.
There appears to be growth in online webinars. I see that Motley Fool does them and viewers can submit questions in real time. I don’t know who does the streaming. I know they love ZM so maybe they’re using Zoom.
Covid gave Zoom a temporary boost that I expect to fade but it also heightened awareness of the product far sooner than I had expected in 2019.
TXG has phenomenal potential for disease modification, far more than mRNA. In a few years I expect it to be huge.
This drop is not like Kodak when electronic photography came along. That was an asteroid-killing-the dinosaurs moment. Covid giveth to stocks and covid hath taken away, but going forward these companies don’t need a pandemic to survive. I expect them to follow a steady path to success.
Remember when AMZN dropped almost 25% between December 2013 and April 2014? I didn’t think so.
“A lot of the stocks listed above are still way up despite recent losses.”
And that’s the problem…
that’s EXACTLY the problem….
There’s an immense amount of money that has been stuck in the equity markets. An event that triggers it’s release into the real economy to chase tangible assets would have disastrous consequences for infation.
“This drop is not like Kodak when electronic photography came along. That was an asteroid-killing-the dinosaurs moment. ”
No it wasn’t. Digital photography was first developed circa 1973 – it wasn’t until 1999-2000 that high-quality digital cameras were made available to consumers at reasonable prices.
You could foresee Kodak’s demise for decades. But like many things the longer the outcome is forestalled – the more rapidly it unfolds.
Things happen slowly; then they happen quickly.
It’s really a game of hot potato now. Who’s buying Tesla or Amazon at those prices? Not the poor or middle class, they’ll try fractional shares. It’s the new disposable income crowd looking to go sky-high thinking tech is all but impossible to go down. I mean, they probably work at one or aspire to and are doing well enough in or around the field currently. Cloud this, code that, the old thing about technology fixing every problem. Racing through life with rose-tinted glasses.
So buy at the peak and then what, earn fifty cents a share for those dozen shares annually? If even that. Tesla barely makes any income from its cars despite hitting its own numbers. Most of its net profit coming from tax credits and Bitcoin sales proceeds of all things. For an electric car company trying to curb emissions and at the same time redeeming emissions credits, they have a fairly significant stake in one of the worst emissions offenders globally.
Does it really matter? Nah, these people just love technology too much and none of that matters. In the long run, I feel all this money is more or less passed around from the same group of people. Microsoft workers buy Tesla, Tesla runs their stuff on Amazon cloud, Amazon uses Office, etc. It’s really odd how corporate synergy works for the tech cult.
looking at it in another way, at $49.1 Trillion, the U.S. Stock Market Is Larger than the Combined GDP of the U.S., China, Japan and Germany.
Don’t worry about that. Stocks will gap down so fast, the market value will go poof. People will be trying to get cash to pay margin debt. Want be any extra cash hitting the real economy when the correction comes.
Splitting hairs. Digital photography killed Kodak.
Ernest Hemingway re-stated.
Is there a reason you don’t mention or have biotech, since that is your area of expertise? I think it will be one of the best sectors in the future, but I don’t have any specialized knowledge to follow it, like you would have.
There’ a guy out of Australia who is always pushing biotech penny stocks and the research sounds amazing, really interesting. Lots of VC investing also going on in Silicon Valley.
Is this directed to me? I get lost in all the threads and replies.
No biotechnology is not my area of expertise. Although arguably 42 years practicing medicine helps, what really helps is my meager knowledge of biotechnology combined with a son-in-law who works with Dr Doudna, the recent Nobel winner for CRISPR.
That’s why I leap-frogged over mRNA companies
to TXG. I was reading about proteomics and asked for his opinion. He confirmed my impression that proteomics has more potential than genomics, although both have stellar futures.
Genomics is what underlies the covid vaccines. You are playing at the gene level. Proteomics is sort of like saying never mind what genetic instructions say, what is actually happening in the cell? Ultimately genes tell the cell what to do, but proteomics tells you if the genes instructions are actually happening.
Proteomics has the potential to address failures of genetic translation into proteins. Instead of fixing the gene you fix what the gene says should be done.
I think it also has more diagnostic potential in terms of identifying things like tumor markers.
Oh no, market and NASDAQ is tanking again today, where are you Weimar Powell? Better come out and jawbone the market and pump more money in today so we can close today with a turn around. High flying tech stocks need you!
No matter though, I am sure the buy the dip crowd will rescue the market tomorrow and weeks to come, seen this picture too many times. Hopium is strong with this one..
NASDAQ: from 2000 (top) to 2020 at the bear market bottom, real cap gains=~0. (20 years is a long time to get 0).
Cherry picking the top and bottom for sure, but those are the numbers.
Also recall that the indices do better than buy and hold “forever” in most studies because of survivorship bias, e.g. the indices change composition over time so the bankrupt guys are out of the index.
That’s one of the (many) brutal truths of the stock market.
Lookit we are still firmly in the Investing Genius Stage. I know many of them. These are successful people with high incomes. They are smart guys. They have alot to say about RE, stocks, commodities, crypto, etc. etc.
Alot of them are early 40’s, and did not buy their first property until after the RE crash that began unfolding in ’07, so they did not endure the huge evaporation of equity that many felt in that era. They only know increasing values. They only know low interest rates.
They also did not suffer greatly during the ’09 market crash as they had not yet amassed huge 401K/Keough/trading accounts by that time. Yes they saw a steep % decline, but in dollars it did not look or feel as bad as the guys who were already in the 7 figure range.
These guys I speak of are very bullish, particularly on RE. Somewhat less so on the broad market but definitely on particular companies and sectors. They have the Midas touch because for the most part it’s all they know. They are living very well and have all the toys and the lifestyle, so their confidence is high. They are smarter than the average bear. They know things. Their analysis is on point. They can see what’s going to happen. It’s actually pretty clear to them.
I’m older. I’ve seen more, lived through it first hand. Seen the emotions, heard the rationalizations, all the predictions, etc. Doesn’t make me smarter, or more likely to be right. It just means I’ve lived through it, that’s all. And I have to say I have seen the types of guys I speak of eventually get humbled. Including me of course.
I haven’t seen Humble Pie being served up for awhile. It feels like the baker is in the back kitchen firing up the oven though. The thing about Humble Pie is the more humble you have been, the less you will have to eat. For others, it might be the only thing on the menu.
I remember my friend riding me past one of the most beautiful homes I have ever seen during the last housing bust. Her friend was living with a real estate guy who had sunk it all into this mansion and they were living in it.
They were stuck, desperately trying to sell it with no buyers. Their relationship was over but they were living there together cause they were broke. I assume they lost it.
During my entire life, I have never been smart enough to make significant money in stocks or other investments as my timing was always too late. Most of what I own today came from hard work and savings. I’m somewhat old school here, and an engineer who built things (not 1’s and 0’s).
But the one time I made a good investment was in 2010 when I bought a really nice 2,000 square foot 3 year old brick home in Texas for $64/sq. ft. We all remember that period in time. After I paid cash for it, I deeded it to my daughter and her husband.
I think we will see deals like that again, or maybe better.
AA
Anybody who tells you their ‘timing’ was better than yours has just been luckier than you. Timing is the biggest mugs game there is.
Patience, pound cost averaging, diversification and compound interest are the only fairly sure way to reasonable long term success in my experience and even then you’ll go +/- 15% every year.
It’s funny cause what you just described is exactly my demographics and goes along with the same mindset among people I know in that age bracket. I am within that group as well except I am completely the opposite as I am one of those weird late Gen Xers that can remember vividly the dotcom and housing bubble bust even though I personally didn’t suffer from it. I also like to read up on history and know a bust can come hard and that humble pie can tough to swallow. I guess only time will tell if I am either stupid and everyone else is investing/RE genius or people like me will get the last laugh.
On the other hand, it’s not hard to spot people like all over social media, MSMs, everyone think they’re the next wealth creating genius. a supercharge version of this is your Dave Portnoy of the world.
Amen. My stock market experience goes back to the 80s. My first mortgage was 13%. I’ve tried all sorts of investing strategies.
My single best investment was a private company that started with a handful of other investors. I was vice chairman during development and then chairman for a brief time after we opened.
What I learned is that (1) a good business takes time to bear fruit. From breaking ground to opening took 2 years. It was another 2 years to see the start of any distributions to investors.
During the course of development we ran into several unforeseen obstacles that could have killed us in our cradle.
Ultimately the last time I looked $50,000 invested with us in 2003 would have paid out about $6,000,000 by now, not counting the value of the equity, which is way more than the initial $50,000 buy-in.
I’ve invested in some other private placements on the ground floor. Some did ok, some failed. I wasn’t involved in management in those entities and I think some failed due to poor management and/or corrupt business practices.
But it’s like baseball. You know what you call a guy who gets on base 30% of the time? An All-star. One Amazon makes up for a lot of mistakes.
1) Paper oil speculators might send WTI to 75/ 80 to form a neckline of an inverse H&S. Oil companies should be prepared of such option.
2) WTI might correct and test the 40/ 45 range, or lower.
3) Volatility will force oil co to diversify in renewable, with gov support.
4) Bill Gates finance mini nukes.
5) DARPA’s buffoon use mini nukes drones to make round trips to Australia, underwater, for half a year.
6) US gov own tons of depleted uranium. Drill baby drill old drums.
7) Mini nukes disruptive innovation model can provide a reliable electric power to rural communities, or other customers.
8) In the early stages they will not compete with large utilities.
9) With lower cost and new solutions, in the next 10 – 20 years, they will expand in US and successfully compete with old nuke and coal plants.
Dude….give it up with the mini-nukes.
Dammit! I’m so backward and old-fashioned, I’ve totally missed out on all this terrific excitement, while I’ve been plodding along, trying to find next year’s best dividend payments.
Just think, I could have bought at 5 and sold at a 100 in a few weeks. But, wait a minute, I could also have bought at 100 and been unable to sell at 5 in a few days, how lucky was I?
Pass me the annual report what does Diagio’s dividend look like for next half-year?
I’m a dinosaur.
Investing was to own a piece of a company and share in its profits. At least the potential for profits came into the analysis.
If you are just betting on the price increasing, -the greater fool concept-, at least call it what it is, a bet, nothing more. Many thousands did the same in the early 2000s real estate market. Rapidly rising “Equity” was assured!! Buy buy buy..