Item #1: Bitcoin surged to $28,500 on Monday on hopes an ETF will be approved. Here we go again. If history is any guide, all Bitcoin ETFs will be rejected still. The SEC has until January 10, 2024 to decide on the Ark Bitcoin ETF, which it almost certainly will reject. Three months is an eternity in the world of crypto, and Bitcoin will certainty be lower before then. I added to short position at $28,500 and will cover at $26,000. You can see the same pattern repeating as always, which the price is getting ready to suddenly crash.
It’s always the same pattern. So easy making money with this. If a billionaire tell you something is going to happen, like Larry Fink promising a Bitcoin ETF will be approved, it’s generally because they have a financial stake in it happening, not because they have any way of knowing or can affect the outcome in any way. Something to keep in mind.
Item #2: From honest-broker.com Judgment Day Arrives at the Washington Post:
I can look like a fool or genius within 48 hours of publishing an article. And there’s no hiding—everybody else gets to measure my results against real world results.
I’m happy with my track record. But it’s always useful to look back and see what actually happens after I give my verdict. That’s why I provide updates on previous posts.
Below I revisit some of my most controversial recent articles, and examine what happened subsequently.
So um….how about those Meta forecasts…Not looking so good huh? No mention of Meta at all in his article.
From Is Facebook’s Metaverse Turning Into a Ghost Town?, he wrote: “Back in October 2021, Facebook shares were trading above $340, but now they are below $200—that’s a loss of around $300 billion in market value.” That is not aging so well. Meta stock is almost at $340 again, on it’s way to $400 soon. No one on Wall Street cares about Metaverse losses or that the Metaverse is unpopular. The future is advertising, as I said a few days ago. Between WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, Meta’s dominance of social networking and mobile advertising is unrivaled and keeps growing. That didn’t suddenly change in 2021-2022 because of Metaverse losses. Even high inflation is not a problem, as advertisers simply raise their bids, which means more money for Meta anyway, so the effect is a sort of a shifting of the y-axis like in algebra.
It’s even worse here: How Web Platforms Collapse: The Facebook Case Study, from Dec. 2022. Whoops. The timing literally could not have been worse, with Meta stock having tripled since the publication of that article. Yeah, Meta was the worst stock on the S&P 500 in 2022, but who cares. Some of us have longer investment horizons than a year. It recovered almost all its losses, as I said it would, going from worst-performing to now best-performing (tied with Nvidia). To have picked the best stock among thousands for 2023 is demonstrative of skill. When it comes to Meta and Google’s business, I am as close to being an insider without technically being an insider. I have a lot of knowledge about that area, so I knew in 2022 that the selling was unjustified and the stock would recover, which it certainly did.
So many people got this wrong, so he’s is hardly alone here. From late 2022 to early 2023, Meta had been written off for dead by many leading experts in media and technology, similar to Tesla in 2019, which in 2020-2021 staged a huge recovery. Everyone gets things wrong, but let’s be honest about it (isn’t that the name of his blog, after all?).
Item #3: What We Know About the Gaza Hospital Blast:
Palestinian officials blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said it was caused by a rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group based in Gaza. The Israeli military said an analysis of its operations systems showed the militant group fired a volley of rockets near the hospital when it was hit. The source of the blast couldn’t yet be independently verified.
Couldn’t Hamas simply provide fragments of the rocket or other samples for independent testing to verify that it is of Israeli origin? That would settle it for all. It would seem like this is something that modern ballistics or explosives forensic technology can settle once and for all, quickly.
Item #4: Biden cuts China off from more Nvidia chips, expands curbs to other countries:
WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) – The Biden administration plans to halt shipments to China of more advanced artificial intelligence chips designed by Nvidia and others, part of a raft of measures released on Tuesday that seek to stop Beijing from receiving cutting-edge U.S. technologies to strengthen its military.
The rules, which go into effect in 30 days, restrict a broader swathe of advanced chips and chipmaking tools to a greater number of countries including Iran and Russia, and blacklist Chinese chip designers Moore Threads and Biren.
Nvidia stock fell 4% yesterday on this news. So much for that ‘Beijing Biden’ meme from 2020, which I said was wrong and inaccurate. Biden is tougher on China and more protectionist in this regard than even Trump. From Jan 2021:
Styxx666 keeps referring to him as ‘Beijing Biden’ but the evidence suggests Biden will continue Trump’s ‘hard line’ approach to China. A couple weeks ago, the Biden campaign put pressure on the EU to halt its deal with China, so I don’t get the impression at all that Biden wants to go easy on China.
Biden is a savvy politician in the sense of triangulating, so student loan forgiveness is playing to his base, whilst being tough on China plays well with everyone. Right again.
Item #5 Judge denies Bankman-Fried’s request for a delay of trial while his Adderall arrives.
Even if you think this guy is a POS, the fact he cannot even get access to his meds soundly refutes the popular narrative from 2022 after his arrest that the criminal justice system would go easy on him or give him preferential treatment. Hardly. If the government’s case is so strong, why should it matter if he gets his drugs? All his political donations were for naught. Meanwhile Trump, who is supposed to be under persecution, is still 100% free despite all that mugshot hype from 2 months ago. I was right again here too.