The information in this message does not represent any financial or investment advice. They're just random thoughts in my head.
gm from Paris
MACRO - We had a soft-ish close on Friday although equities bounced a decent amount off the lows. SPX was unchanged and NDQ 0.4% lower. Futures are both about 0.3% lower this morning. On Friday we got the payrolls number which once again came in higher at around +260k as opposed to expectations of 200k. It's probably the 3rd or 4th time we've seen the labour market come out "better than expected"...I know this that there is usually a lagged effect on the labour market but that everyone knows that so it doesn't explain why we keep coming out higher than expected. Either the effect is "more lagged" than the market thinks or the effect is just "not as bad" as the market thinks, the latter of which would be highly important. The next two weeks are huge in that we get CPI data AND an FOMC which I think will set the tone next year. I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Raoul Pal yesterday and this thoughts are mostly in line, the potential for inflation to keep trending lower (given increasingly easier comps, especially during next year). I still think the bigger concern at the moment is how deep any recession will be and so far the labour market data is telling us it's either not here year or as bad as we fear. We get CPI on Tues 13th December and the FOMC on Weds 14th December; I think these days will be a defining moment.
CRYPTO - We've seen some steady strength and stability for crypto, in particular BTC which now sits at 17.3K while ETH is close to breaking 1300. IMO, as I mentioned last week, crypto is poised to have a bit of a break out here. We've had some huge shifts in the macro picture while the FTX shenanigans still plagues crypto. That could change drastically if we get lower-than-expected inflation and a less-hawkish-than-expected Fed, both of which are very possible. I'm not much of a short term price predictor but my guess is that crypto probably rallies this week into those numbers (purely just a guess). We need to keep an eye on various FTX-related headlines but as time goes on it feels like no one really has a requirement to force sell large amounts of crypto, nothing like the liquidations we saw back in June. Time is on our side here, the longer it is that any such headlines don't surface, the greater the likelihood that they will not come.
NFTs - Volumes have been mostly quiet as MAYC and BAYC take the top two spots today posting just over 500E of volume between the two on no price impact. Elsewhere price action seems to be mostly green as NFTs continue their rebound. In particular, SuperRare's RarePass is up another 15% to a 40E floor after the first drop, Decoherence by Van Arman sits at a 4E floor. It's also worth noting the good activity in rektguy we've seen over the last 24H with 72 sales totalling 63E of volume (+641%). What's notable for me there is the high average price we're seeing implying a lot of rare sales, for example, on 3rd December the average price was 1.5E which is almost 3x what the floor was at the time. Remember, today the staking UI goes live and pre-commitment begins. Rewards start accruing from 12th December. If all goes well this could be a potential tailwind to the NFT market and indeed $APE is up about 15% or so in the last 24H. I would strongly recommend reading this before doing anything:
Finally, I'll be at the Ledger 0pen next couple of days in Paris, if anyone is around come say hi!
GL this week
-OSF