The information in this message does not represent any financial or investment advice. They're just random thoughts in my head.
gm
MACRO - stocks lower again with the S&P down 1% and NASDAQ down 1.5% - we are now on course for 5 straight weeks of losses in equities. Futures were briefly higher but seem to be pointing lower. Definitely feels like sentiment is downtrodden and consensus expectations are bearish - I quite like that setup going into major data points like non-farm payrolls today (8.30am EST) as you can see large reversals. Expectations for that figure are 200K - if we come in below then expect a large rally. Eurozone inflation came in lower than expectations today (still at 9.2%!) but it probably not enough to stop the ECB from raising interest rates 100bps (1%) over the next two meetings. Europe continues to look in a much worse spot to me over the next 12 months - the ECB hasn’t even started reducing its balance sheet!
CRYPTO - another relatively quiet day in crypto with ETH opening the day unchanged at 1250 and BTC at 16800. APE dipped below 4 and is now about 7% lower over the last two days - will be interesting to see how that one plays out after the Yuga announcements later this month - there is meant to be some utility to using APE during the “minting experience” but it won’t be the only currency for mint (unlike Otherdeeds). Elsewhere, Solana dog-coin BONK dropped 50% overnight (unsurprisingly!) while Rug Radio’s RUG token continues to migrate higher (+20% to 0.08) ahead of the Cory Van Lew PFP drop. Seeing some low-level FUD around crypto exchange Huobi overnight after they announced a number of layoffs and started paying their employees in USDT/USDC rather than fiat. Seems like exchange withdrawals have picked up in the last few days albeit that happens whenever there is FUD around an exchange. Don’t see a smoking gun here or anything but worth keeping an eye-on - Justin Sun is not someone to trust…
NFTs - if yesterdays focus was on Azuki, todays is right back on Yuga Labs. All assets in the ecosystem are flying, BAYC back to 84, MAYC to 20, BAKC to 12. The next piece of information we get on their upcoming mint is on the 11th Jan - this run could be related to that or it could be related to the high staking yields on APE coin right now using these NFTs. Either way its great to see and the mantra of never fade Yuga seems to be back on the timeline! Elsewhere goblintown was up 80% to 1.2 - that’s been a sleeper in my eyes, definitely interesting IP and the project dominated NFTs for a few weeks in 2022 for better or worse! I saw some rumours that goblintown might be related to Yuga or Mutant Hounds in some way again - I don’t believe them but that might explain part of the pump. Valhalla rose above 1E again, community does seem strong, art is good and it looks like it could be one of the more successful mints of the last few months. There’s also been a pump in a number of Japanese NFT projects recently - Live Like a Cat, Crypto Ninja and DenDekaDen are 3 projects which all ran up to 2.5E. While I think Japanese IP probably has the opportunity to be one of the most successful in this space, part of me is wary of recycling all the same trends from January 2021 - cute meta, Japan/anime meta etc. Don’t buy projects because they fit into a category which is pumping - usually there are only 1 or 2 winners in each category and everything else gets smoked.
GL today!