The Dumbest Bear Market in History and The Looming US Dollar Crisis …Sunday Reads And Listens
Happy Sunday
It was a long week and might be a longer week for those that care about markets and volatility. I am going to take my time here sharing my best thoughts and links that are helping me prepare and get in the right frame of mind.
I will be doing a longer Momentum Monday this evening after the futures open and hopefully have a better feel and tighter game plan.
Before I get started, a daily reminder that the Stocktwits Cashtag Awards is coming up April 30th in New York. It will be a fun night of comedy and awards for the best in investing. Come hang with us…
They say laughing is the only way to cope with a portfolio down 20%…
That’s why @franciscellis will be at the Cashtag Awards, Presented by @eToro, on April 30th in NYC! 👏
It’s going to be a great night! 🍻
Get your tickets now: event.tixologi.com/event/5862?qr=…
— Stocktwits (@Stocktwits)
11:26 PM • Apr 10, 2025
Next up…
Here are the (Max and I) Masters best we placed on Wednesday on Robinhood. It looks like a two man race as the last 8 winners of the tournament have come from the final pairing and Bryson (20 to 1 when we bet) and Rory (8 to 1) have been under this pressure before. I am rooting for Bryson but both are playing like legends and the quality of golf is spectacular.
The Masters is all about tradition and rules and respect. This tweet from the US State Department seemed fitting this weekend as our leaders in politics and business, not just regular citizens and visitors, treat and abuse privileges as rights. As I mentioned last week the leaders spewing these quotes need their own ‘have you no shame’ moment…
Onward…
Here we are a few days post $VIX ( ▼ 7.76% ) 50 and 60.
This will be another wild week in markets. I do not plan on trading much because I added to my indexes last week at the peak $VIX (so far) and in a few months we will know a lot more. While I mix it up with the ‘experts’ on Twitter to blow off steam, I only share what I am doing here and on my Stocktwits stream.
If you want a deep dive into what worries a lot of economists, investors and traders you might enjoy these ‘Crises Notes’ pieces. I did. Take note the author has been shadowbanned on Twitter and has left the site, but do not judge him on that because I too have been shadowbanned on Twitter.
Also, my friend Jan Van Eck shared their Van Eck research on the tariff talks and is worth listening (click on links in tweet)…
There is a lot of vague tariff talk. Please see our specific estimates around minute 11.
In brief:
Fiscal reckoning is here: Base case is for $1T in US deficit reduction, or 3% of GDP—will slow growth, slow inflation and allow Fed to cut rates significantly.
Gold and bitcoin— Jan van Eck (@JanvanEck3)
3:44 PM • Apr 13, 2025
Here is what happened after the market closed Friday which the US financial/tech world is ‘cheering’ (Dan Ives summary):
Here is what the markets and CEO’s have had to digest since JUST last Wednesday:
Since *Wednesday*:
We have had:
– Universal “reciprocal tariffs”
– A removal back down to 10%
– 50% Chinese tariffs
– 90% Chinese tariffs
– 104% Chinese tariffs
– 125% Chinese tariffs
– 145% Chinese tariffs
– Electronics exempted
– Electronics now potentially back on.If you
— Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian)
3:34 PM • Apr 13, 2025
While volatility is good for spikes in traffic to trading housers, Twitter, Stocktwits, it is not productive at all medium and long term and that is how businesses make decisions.
IPO’s have been cancelled, budgets have already been tightened, layoffs are being mapped out, spending will slow and even at the seed level I have been telling founders to push out plans an extra year. I doubt you will not get fired for thinking about 2025 as a survival and transition year.
The dumbest bear market in history might quickly resolve itself in many stock prices and yes we will get rate cuts sooner than later now because of the bear market, but to ignore Trump’s view of the world would be just as dumb.
While political junkies and new global macro ‘experts’ will dunk on each other on their podcasts the next year talking about policies from twenty years ago that might have brought us here, 99 percent of Americans the world are wondering about what the world will look like in six months and two years now that the chaos of ‘Liberation’ day is out of the box.
I know it will look different because $VIX 50 brings much change. It will create new trends and accelerate trends you both were not aware or took for granted.
The reason I have trained myself to look forward to $VIX 50 markets is I know the calm that eventually comes after the storm. Indexing is the simplest way to ensure you catch the meat of these trends without guessing which trend.
I explained that again in this clip from ‘Trends With Friends’ last Tuesday:
“Be greedy when other people are fearful.” Assuming cooler heads will prevail, I’d bet investments made now (at VIX 45) will be higher when one day you wake up and the VIX is at 15. We dive deeper on this week’s Trends With Friends.
— Coronado ‘Porch’ Lindzon (@howardlindzon)
10:56 PM • Apr 10, 2025
As confident as I am that the $VIX will calm, I worry about the decaying trust in our markets, therefore demand for our stocks/companies, once the $VIX does indeed settle down.
Stocks are just a small part of the global investing world. The bond market and FX markets are bigger and can matter much more.
I have been living in the glorious bubble of the US stock market driven by open borders, insane technological advances and profit growth, lows US rates and a stable set of rules.
Because of technology and this everlasting US technology bull market, we have plumbing the world to buy our US stocks and other assets. It is a trend that has fascinated me and one that I continue to invest in. Investors around the world went from wanting US dollars to wanting Tesla, Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta, Costco etc…
Our ‘degenerate economy’ was becoming the worlds ‘degenerate economy’.
If you are a foreigner and buy $QQQ ( ▲ 1.84% ) or $TSLA ( ▼ 0.04% ) or a growth stock and it dipped the last 10 years at least your US dollars held up and you could also count on growth focused policy (we can argue about whether the policy was bad of course) to tempt yu to ‘buy the dip’.
If this crisis spreads to the US dollar, that cushion may disappear so could too demand for US stocks.
The worlds ‘degenerate economy’ may go elsewhere for their investments and speculation.
Something I have been thinking about at least.
