The information in this message does not represent any financial or investment advice. They're just random thoughts in my head.
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MACRO - As expected the Fed hiked by 25bps yesterday and IMO the presser was overall mostly a non event. Powell once again reiterated things would be data dependent, that the sticky labour market was still a concern and left the door open for more hikes. He reiterated that he did not expect the Fed to cut rates this year (now the overwhelming market expectation) but it sounded like it could be a possibility next year. Allegedly he claims the banking sector continues to be in good health which gives them ammo to hike/keep rates high if needed. Stocks didn't really do much and ended the day unch'd on SPX and down 0.4% on NDQ but futures are roaring back today up 0.7% on SPX and 1.4% on NDQ. Interest rates barely budged with 2Y currently at 4.83%. We don't hear from the Fed now until September, and in between we will have two more payrolls and two more inflation prints so hopefully that gives us some more data for clarity. The next think to watch out for is payrolls next Friday, but IMO the August 10th inflation print will be very crucial for setting the tone for the rest of the summer and as we approach September.
CRYPTO - We saw a solid bounce yesterday post FOMC which took BTC to 29.5K and ETH to 1875. More imprtantly it was nice to see a decent bounce across a few alts with many things up 5-10%. It means BTC dominance has dropped ever so slightly to 49.8%. My guess here is that there was some fear on crypto if the FOMC turned out overly hawkish and macro took a big dip that crypto could really get hit. It appears that did not happen so it's nice to see a rebound but we do indeed remain firmly in a narrow choppy trading channel and I can only hope we transcend higher but the reality is there seems to still be decent sell pressure out there preventing us from moving.
NFTs - it looks like we're seeing a small bounce across the board with MAYC, DeGods, Azuki and Pudgy Penguins all posting smal 3-5% comebacks. Cryptopunks appear to be marginally higher and we saw yet another hoodie punk sale at 179ETH. One thing I would say is that the "quality" of hoodie punks has been coming higher at lower prices; ie it feels like rares are trading lower and lower. Something interesting is that a wallet holding 17 Zombie punks appears to have risen from the dead (
https://twitter.com/0xquit/status/1684327226236628993?s=46&t=IJuRNkCxvuzRMECHaAEeNg
) - I can only imagine that they are a potential seller and perhaps that's an explanation for why rare crypto punks are trading lower; people want to make room for zombie punks. That one is certainly gonna be interesting.
Reports - Today we will look at Dmitri Cherniak, a Canadian legend of the generative art scene who currently resides in NYC. Getting into crypto early in 2014, he was originally one of the first people to implement Coinbase’s bitcoin tipping widget as a means to help journalists get more funding for their work. He became more and more interested with the ideas of Ethereum and what it could do for artists, which led him to minting his first piece in 2019. Later he would be approached by Artblocks and the rest is history.
Ringers - Art Blocks curated project #12 - 31k ETH in secondary sales.
GL Today!