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 - we managed to eek out a gain yesterday in stocks but futures today are pointing to a reversal. Two factors have made things a little weaker - 1) predictably hawkish commentary again from the FOMC minutes; 2) some stronger US ADP employment data coming out this morning. The big employment data figure will be tomorrow’s non-farm payrolls figure where the estimate is 200k. There is still a big disconnect with what the market is implying about the future path of rate cuts and what the Fed is saying - hopefully we get closer to parity tomorrow .
Elsewhere oil has dropped around 10% since the start of the year. This should help inflation but probably is more a sign that the market is expecting a global recession.
CRYPTO - crypto did very little yesterday except hold the gains that it had made over the previous day. ETH is starting the day at 1250 and BTC at 16800. Starting to think the strength in NFTs could lead to a broader crypto rally - NFT volumes over the last month were around $900m vs ETH market cap of $150bn. Even with a weaker macro picture and a large dose of Blur airdrop farming that ratio seems low. ETH is continuing to prove it is the currency of the new web economy even in the depths of the bear. Saw a rise in some NFT microcaps yesterday including the Solana dog coin $BONK +50% and Rug Radio’s native token $RUG +60%. SOL dipped back to 13 but funding rates are still very negative on futures implying the short squeeze should still be respected!
NFTs - Wow. This bull-run continues to pick up pace. Tread with a little caution here given the moves over the last few days but I genuinely think this positive sentiment will last for Q1. Buy with a long-term perspective and to be part of a community - not for the pump. We have seen a number of monster Azuki spirit sales recently culminating in 3 x above 200ETH and yesterday we saw the floor price (+20% to 16.5) + Beanz (+25% to 2) price really take-off. The whole Azuki ecosystem feels like the focus of the market at the moment - it has worldwide buyer base, taps into the Asian luxury trend, appears to have weathered the storm around Zagabond and continues to hit with each activation. Its definitely one of my favourite picks in 2023. Rug Radio got a shout-out chart from Crypto Kaleo and there were some big sweeps up to 0.6E - remember there is an upcoming PFP mint from Cory Van Lew which will be mineable for NFT holders for 690 $RUG. On the art side we saw another XCOPY 1/10 edition sell for 100E and this predictably caused Grifters + MAX Pain to rally. The same group of cute animal projects - Pudgy Penguins (+Lil Pudgies), Sappy Seals, The Plague, Kanpai Pandas are crushing it with most up 10-30%. And finally rektguy - hit a high floor of 2ETH after some large sweeps and a Golden Girl sale for 12.69E. We also saw an RLD sale at 16ETH and TABZ hit 0.25E. What a ride the last few months has been, we have loved building this with all of you! GL today!