The US-China trade wars wars reignited over the past four days. A lot to cover.
In the early hours of Friday, October 10th, Trump threatened tariffs on China, causing the Nasdaq to drop 3%. But after the market close, Trump confirmed the decision, announcing that ‘100% tariffs on China’ would go into effect on November 1st. As per my October 4th post, I was prepared, being short Bitcoin as a hedge when Trump made both announcements that day. Bitcoin instantly fell 5% following his second announcement, on top of a 4% decline during the normal trading hours following his initial threat, for a total decline of around 10%. The Nasdaq was down much less, so I profited huge from delta.
Bitcoin at one point fell as low as $107k–a $10k decline from the close of $117k–minutes following Trump’s second announcement, resulting in as much as $20 billion in liquidations from overleveraged crypto traders.
A while back, I mentioned the ‘doom loop‘, which describes the tendency of the same negative headlines to periodically recur and then fade, as if in a loop. Last Friday, the loop stopped at ‘tariffs’. I had changed my Bitcoin hedging method accordingly to short Bitcoin 24-7 to take advantage of the unpredictability of bad news, and to to be prepared for news that would drop between Friday night to Monday morning. Indeed, the tariffs were announced two hours after the stock market had closed on Friday, thus I was prepared. The hedging method was put to the test and passed with flying colors, exceeding my most optimistic expectations.
On Monday, the 13th, Bitcoin and stocks recovered following a post on Sunday by Trump, which was coded as positive and constructive, but compared to the nasdaq, Bitcoin still lagged considerably, so I’m way ahead. Plotted out completely, Bitcoin has massively underperformed over the past week and as far back as many months.
My account hit another record high on Monday as a result of Bitcoin falling and AVGO and TSLA shares making big gains. Hedge funds pay full-time staff 6-7 figures to find hedging strategies, whereas I found the best strategy, that being shorting Bitcoin, on my own in my spare time, for free. This shows the power of high IQ. It’s not a linear scaling effect going from IQ to IQ+ε, but more like exponential.
Others have claimed to have the world’s highest IQ or exceptionally high IQs, e.g. Christopher Langan or ‘memory champion’ YoungHoon Kim of South Korea with a claimed IQ of 276, but neither are taken seriously because they lack the accomplishments or other evidence to substantiate such claims. If you’re going to lie about IQ, at least choose a value that is theoretically possible. Anything above 190 is generally regarded as impossible.
The November 1st deadline is almost three weeks from now, which is an eternity in geopolitics. This suggests Trump is open to changing his mind, as he has frequently done, hence the ‘TACO meme‘, which even has a Wikipedia page now. Pre-TACO, I was the among the first–if not the first–to predict Trump would back down, which he did, seeing that the falling stock market in April would hurt his approval ratings and give ammunition to the left. Trump would not be able to blame the falling stock market on the left , when he caused it.
People on either side of the aisle underestimate Trump’s pragmatism and how closely he follows the headlines and sentiment. He’s sorta the opposite of past presidents in this regard. George W. Bush for example dug into the Iraq war his entire second term, not giving up an inch and even doubling-down in 2007-2008 with the ‘troop surge’ despite public sentiment of the war souring.
The market’s huge recovery on Monday is indicative of this. Even if he was to follow through with the tariffs, the economic impact would be small anyway. Yet, Bitcoin’s weakness means I am hedged, and I will profit regardless. I don’t have to worry about what Trump will do next, unlike the majority of investors, who are at his mercy. People are frantically refreshing the headlines as to his next move, and I am sleeping well and with peace of mind.
But today on Tuesday, the 14th, China reiterated its original position and hit back with sanctions, causing stocks and Bitcoin to fall again. Like on Friday, I was still prepared by keeping the Bitcoin short hedge open. This worked out really well because Bitcoin forfeited all its Sunday-Monday gains, whereas the Nasdaq held up better, so I came out way ahead, again reaffirming my strategy.