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Bitcoin 70k breakout will be decided in the next 72 hours. Well, a lot of people predicting that Bitcoin will continue up from here and a lot of people looking to macro markets for a reason that that might happen. Of course, headlines about Iran but more specifically for monster earnings this week as well as some important inflation data we're going to dive into all that today. We got the three amigos, myself, Dave and Mike McGlone back from two weeks off markets. Can't wait to hear what he has to say. Let's go.
B
Let's do. Let's do.
A
Good morning everybody and welcome to Macro Monday. I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend. I'm back in the studio here as you can say and more importantly we've got Mike back so let's go ahead and bring him on. Right now we have Mike and Dave. Good morning gentlemen.
B
Morning.
C
Morning Mike.
A
Morning meeting. Did you, did you take off the morning meeting for two weeks too when you, you know, separated from markets? Did you completely get out of it?
C
I did, I did. It was good to disengage. It's hard to stay away from markets when you're addicted. But I, it was nice to not log on for basically a week and a half but so from the the update from the our economist our meeting was this week's purely fomc. Stuart Paul's our economist. He pointed out the Fed's two and two camps. There's the uncertain uncertainty but they're all more willing to act now. They're all tipping towards uncertainty with inflation being the key issue and AI associated investment the top driver for inflation. He thinks in this meeting this week that the policy rates will remain unchanged. Data we're getting Q2 GDP expects it to be 2.0%. Household spending increased 2.4% so still strong and the PC deflator to drop to about 3.7 which we all know is still above the Fed's target but so his quote is expect a hot GDP number supported by AI investment. Will Hoffman on rates had a few decent comments. He pointed out the oil beta to the short end has shrunk. He doesn't think the Fed's gonna the all this hiking price in the market will be materialized. He thinks the Fed's gonna sit on their hands for the rest of the year. Although the markets are priced for 2% inflation into at some point next year the price for hikes. He did point out the 10 year nose broke above 466 resistance but here we are back below that auctions Foreign demands and return to normal levels and hawkish hold expected from the Fed will we Hoffner made a few quotes on equities busiest weeks of earnings last week Tesla and Alphabet were not good but he pointed out we have 800 billion of capex spendings from the hyperscalers in 2027 expects that to increase to 1 trillion in 2028 earnings growth is running 26% overall pace this year expects to be 23% it's quite phenomenal and the market as a whole is good shape as long as inflation does not mess it up. Our FX strategy point out to you some good reasons for the dollar to continue strong we don't have to mention all those the point is the Fed's hawkish the data has been strong geopolitical uncertainty and there's pretty significant nervous about the yen although markets still quite quite you know specs are quite short and then I pointed out on the back of her hawkish comments about the dollar that's bad for most commodities most notably metals. I viewed the whole metal sector as a complete sock puppet to the stock market including gold. Stock market goes down correlations between most metals in the gold and the stock market about the highest ever and then the market going up. It's never had this that's like 60 days. And I pointed out the key thing that's like happening in agriculture. It's a complex complete sock puppet to crude oil. Crude oil's up 50%, soybean oil's up 50% crude oil goes down, the whole agriculture sector goes down. And if you have any opinion on crude oil, just what does Mr. Trump need or want for midterms? I fully expect those prices to be lower and 80 is probably the key inflection point in crude. Back to you.
A
Yeah, I'm just going to show really quickly and Dave, I know you want to talk about oil so we'll do that in a second. I just wanted to show the key events this week just so people have some context. Mike, you mentioned the earnings it's Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon all this week and trailing what happened obviously with Google and Tesla last week. I think those are going to be the key events this week but then I guess we can dive into oil and the hawkish Fed. But Dave, you and I were talking right before the show about oil and you kind of had a giggle so I'd love for you to kind of follow up.
B
I mean markets Mike and I both one of the things Mike and I agree upon most, I mean people always love I mean we like to fight and spar about a bunch of stuff, but one thing we absolutely agree upon is markets have a very strong tendency of humbling everybody who participates. And as recent as last week, the amount of chatter and the amount of confidence from pundits that oil was about to, that was it. We're running out of missiles, everything's bad in Iran, the Straits are still closed. China, there's some data out saying that, you know, that they're re importing and so oil was going to rocket back up over 100. And sure enough, what happens going into the weekend? The shorts get caught offside, you have a 6% fall right in their face. And why am I pointing this out? I'm pointing this out because we always talk about that hot ball of money. Now it's not a ball of money, it's individuals swarming. But the truth is there was a lot of speculation on oil last week on the long side and they got, they got rinsed. And it's the same thing we see in crypto, it's the same thing we see in gold, same thing we see in the stock market. Speculators get rinsed and whenever you're absolute. So I would just basically make the point. And I did make it a lot. Anybody who is absolutely confident in something and speculates on significant margin, you know, a lot of oil is done on 20x leverage. You know, that's why you see what you see and it's, it's, it was a textbook case. Now, does that mean that oil isn't going to go back higher if we can't, you know, if there's more war and, you know, the pipelines are destroyed? No, of course it can, but it's never as obvious as people make it out to be. And it's really, particularly in the case of a commodity where the cost of production is $55 a barrel. And so I will keep saying it, but why does this matter? Well, because a lot of this notion of inflation, most of it is from energy, most of it is from oil. Yeah, there's some people yell data centers and all the infrastructure and AI, but net AI is probably deflationary. And most importantly, whether or not you agree with me, the one person who has said this more than any other person is Kevin Orsch. And he kind of is an important person. You know, what he, what he thinks is true. So the fact that AI's utility is deflationary, AI spending, it's only really inflationary if it jacks up the price of electricity, which it is doing but it's really the energy side. And oil is the key thing to watch here because if that can stay in a moderated range, then inflation by every metric will come down. Now, the one thing you didn't talk about, Mike, and I'm curious what the people at Bloomberg are saying about this, is it's pretty well established that the inflation metric that he wants to use by trimming, et cetera, is lower. It's closer to truflation than it is to what the Fed's been using. And by that metric, inflation is almost within their target range. I think the last measure was like 2 1/2% of his metric. And I'm curious, do people think that he's bluffing about that or do they really still think that the Fed is going to lean?
A
Hawkish?
B
Because I think that if they are, they're wrong and they're being caught. And I think a lot of people are going to be caught off sites. Although I don't believe he's going to cut rates this week.
A
I think we need to define hawkish in this case because traditionally you would think when you're talking about hawkish that it means he's going to raise rates, but very few people really believe that's going to happen. Right. So it's more about tone or when we'll eventually get cuts or how long we'll pause.
B
But just before Mike, Mike says, because I really do want to hear what you say. There are a lot of people who think when there's a move, the next move is higher, not lower.
D
Right.
B
And I think that's absolutely just psychotically nuts. But I do think that that's what people there. I think that's the mainstream. Don't you?
A
Yeah, yeah. Which I think is.
B
No, no, Mike, don't you. I mean, what do you guys think? I mean, do you think that's. That's consensus?
C
Well, I. Oh, yeah. Well, futures are priced for two hikes by April next year. So that's priced in the market most. It's unique how it's priced in. That's what the market thinks. But most economists think they're not going to hike. And even our Anna Wong has pointed out they might ease. But we have to focus on. I'll just point on my views. The top number one force for the Fed to do anything is the stock market. It keeps going up. They might have to tighten. It goes down, they will eat ease. It just. It goes down and stays down. That's your ease cycle that kicks in and brings everything lower, which most Notably bond yields. But I think the key theme here is for wars to focus on a less than significant inflation metric now is just plain suicide. Because that electric gets it, the whole population get it. All the poise the polls are pointed out to. Sorry guys, but you have to control inflation or you're going to be voted out. This is what's changed in the whole metric in the past of Mr. Trump and people like President Nixon pressing Arthur Burns to cut rates to goose the economy. That whole cycle has shifted, it's over. The answers have changed. Now we have an issue with too how much inflation, most notably for massive wealth creation effect and the Fed easing when they should have been cutting. When bond yield yields going up, we're telling them to cut and now we're in the bad, we're in the lose lose case. So to me that is if worse even mentioned silly stuff like inflation measures being lower or heading lower. This is going to make this going to hit headline tapes on the Post in New York Times. I mean it's that bad now it's. So inflation's the number one problem. The Fed's job is to control it. Worse gets it by his statement. So I think he's going to remain hawkish, but I think he's going to look over and say, you know, if the stock market just has a little bit of volatility and drops a little problem solved hiking rates. And also there's the alternative for him to actually come in and hike rates and do a first rate hike just within the next two years of President Trump's term would be a complete profile and courage which is very unlikely. So to me that's my scenario. This is part of that lose, lose that Bitcoin has picked up by peaking and just being a complete bear market that people haven't figured out yet that gold has picked up by peaking and silver has peaked and things like crude oil bouncing a little bit. But the price of crude oil right now is the same as it was first traded in 2007. The number one source for inflation, bar none, is what our economist said and that is the AI driven and massive wealth effect in the stock market. That's where we are. It's an end game.
B
So the thing about the stock market that's fascinating, I mean there's two things that I think really matter, right. You know, one is definitely concerning, but not as concerning as I thought, which is margin debt. And the other is where are, where's the stock market relative to corporate earnings? Like you, you, you made the statement and I Know, it's true that corporate earnings growth has been phenomenal, meaning the stock market is tracking it. We know corporate earnings as a percentage of GDP are at all time highs, just like market valuation of GDP is at all time high. And all of that is fascinating. You talk about the wealth effect. The wealth effect is a very big deal. It's a big deal for positives and negatives, right? I mean, the positive is obviously lots of spending. You know, a lot of the economy is based on boomers sell, you know, who have either they borrow against or sell stocks slowly at these high prices in order to buy. I mean, that's what you're talking about. I mean, who knows what, what consumer demand does if the stock market crashes. We used to say that back, you know, 30 years ago, you know, you know, the Main street and Wall street were very, very different, and now they're not so different, certainly in the affluence pieces of the economy. And that's what you're talking about, the wealth effect. But because of that, that creates an interesting dynamic, which is what does the government do in a world where the wealth effect is the primary driver of, but not just consumer spending and not just the economy, but also tax receipts. And you get Congress people out there, like Warren Davidson has had, I have a lot of respect for him, and he made a lot of interesting statements about budget deficits. And he basically admitted that they can't really restrain spending, they certainly can't cut it because there's no political way to cut spending. But if there's no political way to cut spending and revenues, if you did get a stock market crash, for example, revenues would just dive bomb and you could end up with 3 to 5 trillion dollars deficits. That is not crazy, particularly if bond yields don't come down. And so, you know, that morass basically puts them in a box, don't you think? Oh, did Mike freeze?
A
He may have.
C
No, I'm. Yeah, you got me.
B
Yeah, we got you.
A
Yeah, we gotcha.
B
Yeah. I was just saying, don't you think they're in a box because of all that?
C
Yeah, I, I caught all that. I, I agree that the, that's the, the situation. The bottom line from, I do enjoy this about for decades is the number one purpose of a politician is get reelected. And how are you going to get reelected? All of them. Trump gets it, everyone gets it. Worse gets it. Besson gets it. You got to get inflation down and crude oil's a problem. Okay, we'll get that fixed. You know, man, that's an Issue. But this is. Come midterms, there's. There's really only one thing to do. Stock market staying strong is great, but that helps the rich people, and that's not helping you in the polls. This is where we are. This is where I think things like bitcoin has figured it out. Stock, it's just over, and we just need, what's the next move? And that's why I think it's telling us what the next move is. Even so, I'm not saying a crash in the stock market. I'm just saying normalization. Maybe it goes down 10 or 20%, but the problem is 20 corrections, 50% of GDP. That's the most in 100 years. So we're the most dependent on the stock market in history.
B
Yeah, now that's, that's very clear. We are the most dependent. I mean, you keep talking about, you know, bitcoin sniffing out. I mean, bitcoin is the same price as it was when you went on vacation. It has been bouncing around, you know, this 64, 65 level after it. It kind of seems to have bottomed at, at around 60. Time is the friend of this bottoming process thesis. It feels very much like it. I mean, I guess we'll see, you know, you know, how it boils down. But there's all sorts of interesting, interesting bits. I mean, bitcoin is still speculative. It's still, it's still trading at a tremendous discount to what it would be if it were what its proponents think it is, which is digital gold. And, you know, gold is. The chart pattern is the same. I mean, every attempt to fall below 4,000 is met with buying, and it's sitting around 4,000, and it's been stuck.
A
We know who's buying because China imported 173 tons of gold in June, the largest monthly import since March 2024.
B
Well, it just shows China is better at trading their assets than Sailor is at trading, you know, bitcoin because they're, they're bottom. They're buying it when they think it's cheap.
A
Right?
B
You know, I don't know, but I'll bet you they didn't import a whole lot over 5,000. I think it's under at 4,000. You know, it's a different story, but it's, it is undeniable that we are printing that. All markets, China included, are all printing more money. And so the nominal prices of these things is going up, but there's a lot more money sloshing around the system. There's no way around it, I mean, $2 trillion deficits when the economy is doing well in a world where corporate earnings are up double digits and over 20% and the economy is humming according to rich people. I mean, the K shape economy effect is very real. And it's funny, I had some interesting conversations this week with people in my age bracket, wealthy people, former investment bankers, semi retired people, et cetera. And when I started talking about some of the K shaped economy stuff, they're like, ah, that's just the kids just aren't working hard enough. And I started spitting out Data, you know, 25% longer to be able to afford a house in of your career that you know, over 10 years longer than it used to be. You know what happens when you print money and all these things go up in price? I mean if you look. Actually, Mike, I don't know if you ever did this. I did this when you were away. I looked at home, the Case Shiller home price index and how home prices have risen since 2000. And it's literally tracked money supply almost perfectly. It hasn't outperformed and the stock market did outperform, but it's almost all in the last five years. So it's essentially, you have to look at this when you do historical. It's just very important. Now why am I mentioning this? I'm mentioning this because we're so trained on nominal price numbers. The only nominal price numbers that haven't been affected by this are ones where productivity has allowed us to do it faster. I mean clearly oil, we can do it with fracking, natural gas, we get it way cheaper. Anything technologically, anything that requires manufacturing, there's. And then when you look at the things that have that technology doesn't do any good for or hasn't like education, well, it's outperformed inflation and so it's. So when we look at charts of stuff, you know, we have to do that now Bitcoin, that is a totally different story. Bitcoin we all know, I think is an option. And I think that more and more smart money believes in that option. And the narratives that were suppressing bitcoin are becoming digested. I think when this whole bip110 thing, and I don't want to dive into it, we talk about that way too much on crypto town hall and the notion of what will happen with quantum fades. Bitcoin will outperform or will crash. If in fact the bad narratives really surface. I think that's really what's going on there. But if we talk about this is a macro show. We're talking about gold. I mean gold is reacting to the fact there's more dollars and there's more rim nibi and there's more euros. I mean that's the thing that's going on and, and the dichotomy like if you look in bitcoin. Scott, what was the data last week on long term holders are at an all time high.
A
Yeah, I mean we keep seeing those that, you know, long term holders and whales are once again accumulating and it's mostly retail and short term sellers that have been capitulating which is highly predictable when you trade in the same range for six months.
B
Sure. But you also don't fade. That's the number of times that that turns out to be anything other than a contra. Well, I don't know. Contrary, whatever. That's a very bullish signal for any asset. It doesn't matter when retail is hates it and institutions are accumulating it, that's not generally the time to sell.
A
Yeah, we've been seeing that for quite a while actually. The, I remember there was a river chart, river research, you know, the platform that showed know institutional in the first quarter so I don't have the second quarter had added you know, 69,000 Bitcoin or something while retail had puked effectively the same amount really quickly. I mean let's talk about some quick bottom signals because we have a few stories. First of all, I guess we can talk about Saylor in a moment but I would say Mike, I'm interested in your take on this because he's clearly been priced like the market is no longer pricing Saylor as a buyer and the market is up 10% ish since it started pricing that. So for anyone who didn't see he sold more strategy and we can get into a long debate over whether he should be doing that and obviously that's dilutive without adding bitcoin per share, which I don't think is their main metric anymore. But he did buy back some SCRC here at an extreme discount and raise enough cash that now their dividend coverage is more than two years. But to me the most important part is he's not going to be buying bitcoin anytime soon. If he sold 3,000, he's unlikely to be a buyer and you can see what he's doing.
C
So I've always been impressed in markets how smart people can overcomplicate simple things. Bitcoin is a bear market. Respect the bear. It had its best run in history to above 100,000. That was the time to sell. Just like gold above 5,000, just like silver above $100 an ounce. Those were some of the best markets ever. And the narrative was from 2005. All the facts that Dave point out you can find on a normal AI chat now. Yeah, every country's bidding currencies are printing money. They're trying to support their economies, their currency debates. I mean that's just classic basic stuff that everybody gets and everybody repeats. But that trade is over. Markets look ahead. Now we have an issue where you get gold, it's four decade high versus the total treasury index. Like, okay, well it's time to make. And Dave, you make comments about smart people, be careful. You're so in the space. Bitcoin is off the radar for smart people. That trade is over. We have to continue the purge. The purge is far from done. The problem is just from a normal supply and demand rules economic standpoint, there is one in 2009 and now there's millions, maybe 100 that matters at least. I look at commodities, only 24 that matters. And they all have a basis. Bitcoin has a basis. Only thing has a basis in cryptos are crypto dollars or stable coins. That's going to continue to proliferate. So this is a bear market. Stop fighting the bear. And anytime you get a chance, maybe we get up to 69 or so. Why is that important? That was the high from 2021. Maybe you get a chance to test another short. But the key thing I pointed out is what I really enjoy reading over my vacation was Brendan Greeley's book, the Almighty Dollar. There's a great quote in there about Irving Fisher, which I always pointed out. He tried to believe that what he thought was just wrong. Sometimes prices just go up. They look forward to they price ahead and it's over. Just look at the fact now is if you're bullish Bitcoin, you have to be looking over that S&P 500. Yeah, maybe if it goes up 10%, maybe I'll make 5%. But if the SSP 500 drops 10%, if you're holding copper or gold or bitcoin, you're going to lose 20 or 30% almost guaranteed on any normal value at risk model. If your value at risk model doesn't show that it's wrong. And by the way, that's the key thing I want to point out. Bitcoin is already flat splunk. The big test. And the big test has not even started. That is when we see A peak in the S P 500 for a year or two and. Or drops 20 or 10 and stays down a while, this stuff will happen. Maybe the setup's there for it. My point, my key point is bitcoin's the best leading indicator. It led the way up, it's leading the way down. It's July. This is a time nothing's supposed to matter now, but as we get to August, September, October, fourth quarter of this year, if bitcoin stays up and the stock market goes down, that's a wonderful thing. But the key risk is we've seen volatility trickle up a little bit from, from commodities to stocks. This disparity has never been this wide. We can get through fourth quarter with stock market hanging in. Okay, maybe bitcoin can get above 70, but if S&P just drops 10%, you fully expect Bitcoin to drop towards 50, $50,000. It's a bear market. It's consolidating. So I'd be very careful if people are in this space who are not looking out at the macro and realizing, yeah, if you're bullish, Bitcoin is the same as kind of being bullish. AOL and Netscape. I mean, this is just one of many. Now, I still, if you're bullish that space, stick with an index that has survivor bias.
B
Well, I mean, the comparison to AOL and Netscape is fascinating. It depends when bullish Google bullish, Amazon is far more likely. If you believe bitcoin is the winner of the, of the digital store of value thesis, then buying bitcoin is like buying Amazon. And the question is, is it buying Amazon when it was at $90 before it fell to 9, or is it buying Amazon when it was at $9 before it went to over 1,000? And those are the numbers. I mean, it is what it is. And that is really the question. And so the notion that bitcoin peaked and was a signal, I think belies the reasoning behind it. There are two narratives that meant that the 25 bull market was dramatically lower than all the other bull markets. And, and that's by the way, in terms of amplitude. That's not that. That's just, that's just factual doubling instead of quadrupling or more. There are two narratives. One was quantum. And, you know, it's still an issue, but if people who have dug into it understand that there are ways of making a quantum resistance, we can go through all of that. The other narrative, that's a big narrative and it is playing out in Congress Right now, now is half the country associated bitcoin with Trump and half the country hates Trump. And so one could make a very strong argument that the thing that breaks the four year cycle is having President Trump. And so whoever is president in 2028 will not be named Trump. And so that effect goes away. So that, that, that is an effect that is literally going to end and it has an expiration date two years from now. And so the question is, it's not that they're selling it because Trump owns it, it's that people just refuse to be associated with an asset. And you know, I was poo pooing that effect, but watching the absolute stupidity of the statements coming out of senators who aren't that dumb. I mean, Chris Burphy from Connecticut is. He's not a functional moron. He really isn't. But what he said this past week was one of the dumbest things I have ever heard come out of an adult's mouth. He basically said because Trump made a lot of money in crypto using meme coins that his administration under Biden, Warren and Gensler made legal, that he would rather leave crypto unregulated, then put in a regulation that doesn't go back and punish him for what he's done in the past or allow, or would potentially allow in the future. Around the edges. I mean, that's just dumb. I mean, it makes no sense. But people when it comes to Trump, I mean, if you don't think TDS is a actual clinical thing, here we have US Senators saying things that a middle school student would know make no sense. I mean, it's literally that dumb. And that is what's driving policy. But it's not just policy, it's driving investments. And so, yeah, I think that that was a big deal. And the over leveraging of what happened on October 10th, that's the typical flush that happens. There's no doubt about it. And there's another, other narratives that are going on in crypto as well. The non bitcoin crypto, you know, Scott and I were talking about Ethereum, is finally breaking out to the high side. But the reason it was so bad is because people realize that the valuations of most crypto assets are quite a few of them that are, well, frankly irrelevant. They don't make any sense because the, the, the corporate profits don't go, the profits that are going to be made don't go to the asset holder. Right. And this is all the legacy of, you know, of the, of the Gensler sec, where Basically said you cannot have a token that passes on economic value. And so you have all these narratives going together and it makes it very, very squishy. But as far as bitcoin leading, I
A
mean, I just don't get like Mike, I still go back to this. I mean we've been saying that for a year. Nothing else is down. Where is it leading? Anyone?
B
Yeah, I mean it's been on cor, it's been uncorrelated.
A
But it's not like I get what you're saying, it's just. Doesn't everything still have to go down? Like at what point do we say it wasn't a leading indicator, it just went into its own bear market. Which we all agree on by the way.
C
Exactly. So if it were easy, something's wrong. And Dave, you nailed at the beginning. So let's give you one example. What's happened in grains this year. At the end of June, the December corn contract made a life of contract low. That was crude oils dropping. And just a couple days ago, the November soybean future which are the most relevant futures this year made a life of contract high as crude oil rally. You gotta screw people. Unfortunately, that's the problem with some of us have been trading forever. If something's easy and you make good money and you taunt the market, markets will get you. And that's what's happening, it's getting people and that's what I think is happening. So right now it's the moribund summertime and yes, you're supposed to question. Everybody's got to stay bullish to equities because that's the only way it goes. And that's why I point out I have some connection with smart money that will never talk to us, partly because they're that clandestine and that big in the connection is some of these people help me get bullish GBTC back when it's trading 8 and I see a lot of people saying yeah, even gold might be over. I'm looking at bonds like you Malone, because you've been wrong for three years, maybe the final be right. So that's the key thing though. That's why this second half, the rest of this year might set the tone for decades. So here's my scenario and I'm sticking with it so far because it's work. The only thing I've really been wrong on as far as responsive shorts is copper above 6 and that one is really risky because copper is just a complete sock puppet to the stock market. It goes up when stocks go down and stocks go down, it goes down a lot more. It's been underperforming for decades. So my key theme is sell rallies and risk assets. Bitcoin near 100. That's dropped lower. Gold above 5,000. Dropped lower. Silver above 100. Now we're at that stage, it's July, but all you need is just a little bit of a 10. Let's say this year we end the S&P 500 down a little bit. That might start a cascade. Well, all you have is what happened in cryptos on October 10th. You flip the switch and people realize the best is over, and then it flips to a bear market. So if I'm wrong on that, then I'll reassess. But this is only July. Let's talk in November and see what this looks like. And I stick with that theme. So far, like I said, the key theme I've had, that's wrong. This year, of all the ones I want to short, copper is above 6. Right now it's 650. The problem is manage money net positions. All the specs are almost 30% long, maybe 25%. The average is 5%. Just had to hit a few stops, goes to five and that trickles down everything. Because basically copper is the same trade as the S&P 500.
B
Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. I mean, copper is obviously enormously highly correlated to everything building, construction, pitch, you know, shovels in the ground stuff, which is a big piece of the S&P 500. Actually, it's been. The piece of the S&P 500 has been performing better.
C
Right.
B
The Mag 7 have been kind of faltering, you know, but, you know, this year the real stuff has been outperforming the other stuff. And, and copper is obviously huge to that. And, and it makes sense that it is, right? You walk around, you know, here, you know, we have a house on Long Beach Island. I mean, every single piece of dirt, somebody is either is thinking about buying it and building new houses. When you build a new house, what do you need? You need copper. You know, you use a lot of it, right? It's, it's a big deal. And so that to me is, it feels toppy. I, I, I, I have, I'm right there with you. But if they can keep the economy humming along, they can keep the wealth effect humming. It will hang in there. So do I think it'll crash? No. Do I think that a natural reversion back towards six, between, you know, five and a half to six, you know, probably makes sense. I mean in the same way that gold going from 5,000 plus down to 4,000 plus made sense. Yeah, and, and I blindly talk about a 20 some odd percent drop in gold, but it's, it feels like that's right.
A
I mean, on the way up it's not surprising that it took those numbers on the way down, even though it would have been surprising in historical.
B
The more interesting question really is the stock market and its relationship to earnings, etc. And it is as we get into the year end, the fiscal year end, which is that October period. That's why you pick November. I think that it's important. Mike and I kind of take it as on faith that October is the most dangerous month for the stock market because that's what a lot of asset managers have, a fiscal year that ends at the end of October.
A
But the upside of that is that it'll be a month before the election. And for those who believe in the four year cycle for bitcoin, that's when it's supposed to start going up again. Assuming that it peaked last October, just.
B
Yeah, look, from a macro perspective, there's not much more to say about bitcoin. We could argue about it till the cows come home. The truth is I think bitcoin is a macro asset in a sense. But if it were a real macro asset, its price would be three to four, five times where it is today because of all the money printing, everything that's going on. But it hasn't been trading that way because of its own idiosyncratic news. And so from a macro perspective, Bitcoin should have done, traded more in line with where gold was, but didn't. And we all understand it. I feel like it's bottoming now and the way it's trading feels. I mean this is almost textbook bottoming, right? Fake rallies, but kind of bouncing around, you know where it is. I mean that's what it looks like. The, the, the, the overwhelming negative sentiment on the asset class for, for months and months and we've been watching it is, is, is not, it's not a top. I mean that's not what tops look like. Tops look like when everyone's happy. And everyone in October when Mike was right was it was dramatically happy even when it crashed. And let's give Mike his flowers here before I let you go, let you speak the. You know, I was bullish after it crashed from 126 down to 90. I thought 90 was holding, but people were still bullish and that didn't get squeezed out until it dropped below 60. And stayed there. Right, and stayed in this range for months at a time. So you were right there. But please, I mean I sit in that. All I can tell you is the amount of attention and the, the sentiment in crypto and bitcoin right now is as low as I've seen it. The wor. The last time I saw it this low was before FTX crashed in the summer of 22.
A
You know that we have some quiet here really quickly, Mike, I just wanted to bring this up before because he obviously mentioned ftx. We talk about Voyager, Celsius, all those, those were these massive fraud adjacent liquidation events. But we do have Bitmex closing last week, Bitmart closing this week. I don't know if you guys saw but Storj, which was one of the big. That's not it. It's here somewhere. Decentralized storage firm storage files voluntary chapter 11 movement labs filed chapter 11. So these are quieter exits and maybe not the exact same thing, but we are getting the bankruptcies and failures. They're just not a result of main characters committing fraud. But these are the similar things that we saw at that bottom.
C
Go ahead. The key thing that's missing in all this is this is what you'd expect to hear in a down stock market. That's not what's happening. That's the main problem. And that's what I need to point out to my citizen. I moderated a panel at the Global Walls Conference. The guy right next to me was so bullish copper. And he pointed at all the fundamental things that most of us have known for five years. I said, so what do you think of the S&P 500? I'm like, well if you're bullish copper, you gotta be bullish the stock market. I'm like, same thing with bitcoin. This is the facts of where we are. So let's put some numbers on it, look forward. So it's nice to get some things right. I get a lot wrong and sometimes it's better to focus on what you got wrong. But the bottom line is looking forward is volatility has never been this high in gold and crude oil. With it staying this low in the stock market, it's just starting to pick up. You got to look at 30, 60, 90, 180 day hasn't really mattered yet. But remember those are annualized and they're always going to be lower at the end of the year than their beginning. So that's just getting started. And then we look at what's happening. People are still fighting, but bitcoin's collapsed. It's below its 200 day moving average, gold's below its 200 day moving average. And if the SB 500 just goes back to its 200 day movements around 7,000, I'll put some numbers on this. I fully expect if it goes down to near its 200 day moving average and maybe by the end of the year is added or below. If it's not above it, I fully expect gold to be closer to 3,000, head towards 3,000, copper to head towards 5 below 6, Bitcoin to head below 50 and bond yields to head from 5 towards 4. That's just a normal cycle. The thing is everything is dependent on stock market going up, even crude oil. Now crude oil is the wild card but Trump's going to make that go lower.
A
So bitcoin's above its 200 moving average. That's just for clarity. And it's been there for a month and actually the fact that it tapped that 200 day moving average, closed below and then closed back above is what we've seen at Bottoms. So I'm just saying it has been above it factually for a month now. It tapped the 50 ma on the monthly and likely is going to close above that. I mean these are bottom signals, not bear market continuation signals.
B
Right? I mean it's just a different feature. Sorry, go ahead.
C
The 200 day moving average in Bitcoin is 72, 000. I don't know what I'm missing here,
A
but you're talking about on the weekly or you talk about in the daily. That might be the difference.
C
I just said 200 day.
A
Oh, I'm sorry, 200 days. The 200 weekly has been the one that everybody sort of watches. You're correct on the daily there, let them.
C
But the key theme, Scott, I have to point out some. I'm a neutral, unbiased strategist now it took me a while to get to that. It's hard to do that, I admit. Sometimes I'm a Republican, I have to switch over and not let politics affect my view. Like I've noticed that with a lot of people hate Trump. They, they don't understand what it means for crude oil. But the, the fact is people who have a vested interest in a market going up will always find excuses for it to not be a bear market. It's a clear bear market. I love looking at all the. I've watched podcasts in the space for five years and they keep coming with excuses. This is A bear market. Oh, it's bottom here. It's bottom. No, it's not even started. The key point is, bottom line is you have to have that stock market go up for Bitcoin not to go down. Stock market drops 10%. Bitcoin's dropping 20 or 30%, almost guaranteed on a value of risk model. Now, that's my point. If I'm wrong on that, that might flip me bullish and people like me bullish. But I'm telling you, this whole space is losing everybody and everything. And if you think it's going to gain institutional, you're missing out the facts of a highly correlated asset that's underperformed beta for five years, almost four years now, and trades at double the volatility. This is a horrible investment. I just point that out. Copper has been similar. It just hasn't broken down yet.
A
It's interesting because I tend to agree with you that Bitcoin has not become an institutionally adopted asset. And there's a conversation I had multiple times last week. I think the notion of institutional adoption has two sides and we've focused on the wrong one. So for Bitcoin specifically, I think what we've viewed as institutional adoption is institutions giving retail access to Bitcoin through their products, but not adopting it themselves as a Treasury asset or something they care about, like BlackRock. For all of Larry Fink sounding like Satoshi, which he does, I mean, they're offering a product that's highly profitable for them and it doesn't really matter if it goes up or down, as long as there's volume. Right. So the ETF is not an institutional product. It's a product from an institution for retail. And I think the institutional adoption of crypto actually has not been Bitcoin. It's largely been our plumbing and rails and infrastructure, which is the thousands of stories that we see about different institutions like dtcc, tokenizing everything literally doesn't help any of us at all. It's a walled garden that they are updating their technology. Right. It's the same. It doesn't really matter at all, I think, to retail. So they're adopting the plumbing and rails, but that's not really investable. So I do tend to agree with you that we are not at the point yet where Bitcoin has received institutional adoption as far as institutions all unanimously wanting to hold it. So I think it's just a. I think there's nuance there, but I do think you're correct on that point.
B
Well, I mean, the fact that It's a bear market. Is. Has been. Is undeniable, right? I mean, we can't argue you drop 50%. I mean, that's a, you know, 20% is a bear market. 50% is a bear market. Question is, is it hated enough? I mean, in 2009, early 2009, the entire world thought that equities were going much, much lower. It did, because. But it had been in a massive bare market since the global financial crisis, and it didn't. And it stopped going down and it bounced around a little bit and there were shoots and it started moving higher. And ultimately we look back on that and we go, how could we all have been that stupid? Because it went up for 15, you know, actually now almost uninterrupted, you know, 16, 17 years, a couple of blips with some, you know, the liberation day or whatever the hell he called the tariff stuff, and a few other little tantrums. But it's been, as you said, up into the right and at all time highs versus GDP and every other metric. I. The fact is, Bitcoin's been in a bear market. There's no question about that. The question is, is, is there anyone left to sell that is likely sellers and who are accumulating? And what is the power law say? What does the adoption curve say? What are all the metrics say? And what's missing in the notion of it being a pure bear market is the fact that adoption continues to do well. I talk about hash rate all the time. We have been hearing for over a year now all these stories about miners capitulating and moving away from mining towards AI, and yet the hash rate is still pretty damn close to the highs. It's much closer to the highs than it is to the lows. We're finally seeing, and we've seen multiple Bitcoin treasury companies unloading their Bitcoin or basically exiting that business, because that was. I mean, there was a tax arbitrage there. But Scott, and I don't want to relitigate because we all agree that that was a ridiculous trend. Right? You know, and yet none of the major drivers of using Bitcoin as collateral have effectively become normal. I mean, yeah, there are some. There are some companies who are doing some really interesting things with Bitcoin as collateral. You know, whether it's on the retail side with, you know, Leaden or People's Reserve, or on the institutional side with what, you know, Coin Routes is doing in terms of helping traders and using Bitcoin as collateral, or all sorts of interesting Stuff's happening, but the accounting rules, whether it's Basel or fasb, still treat it punitively is probably the best word for it. And if that changes, then there's other businesses there. But the entirety of the bitcoin treasury situation has been a drag on this market the whole way down. And the reason strategy mstr, my uncle Sailor is doing what he's doing is they made a massive tactical mistake, right? They, by buying back that convertible bond and getting rid of their dividend coverage, you know, they effectively were making a bet that the, the bear market was over and it was ready to go straight back up and it wasn't. And that caused all sorts of stories about that have since been proven wrong about how it will create a doom loop. So now he, they realize that and so they basically said, okay, look, there's no doom loop here. And so that's not going to happen. You don't get doom loop stories at tops, you get them at bottoms. That's all I was trying to say about that. But as far as the stock market goes, I mean, look, it is at elevated levels, right? You know, like we haven't talked about margin debt. Margin debt's an interesting one. In absolute terms it's at off the charts high, but it's not, it's still well below the level of margin debt relative on a percentage basis that was in 2000 and 2007. Now if it gets to those levels, if things keep going up and it gets there, I mean, it's already scaring me. That would be a very dangerous signal. You know, we will see what happens over the next two or three months. But if you get another rally and people, you know, start buying more and more stock on margin and we end up at those. Let me get the exact level, hold on a minute. So right now the long term average of, of it is 1.88%. We're at 1.99% the historical rate. The highs were over two and a half percent to almost 3%. And so that's margin debt that keeps moving higher. That's, that's going to be, that is the fuel for something bad to happen. And if that bad to happen happens, here's the question that I ask you. What is the single asset that when the stock market has crashed and the Fed has been forced to intervene, what has performed best subsequent to that? The answer is bitcoin, right?
A
By a lot.
B
And I think that there's a lot of people who don't want to wait for that. If the stock market crashes Will bitcoin drop more than the stock market? Maybe for a few minutes, but not for days and not for weeks. Because bitcoin will be the biggest beneficiary. The only way that that would happen where the stock market drops and bitcoin drops more and stays down is if the Fed does nothing. I mean, it's possible, but that would have to be the case.
A
Mike has said that, right? That it's not just the stock market dropping, it's the stock market dropping and staying right, Which I think, yeah,
C
it will happen. So this is where I think we add value, Dave. We can't agree and we agreeing a lot, but this is one where I will short bitcoin to you right now. I will short stocks, copper, silver, gold, everything by the end of the year. And I expect to be up. And there's only one thing I want to buy from you is long bonds at 513 because I fully expect to make a couple hundred basis points on the next hundred years. Next couple years. Been wrong in that. So just give me till the end of the year. Happy to short it to you right now. And to me it's very simple. The problem we have to really admit about bitcoin is there's an unlimited supply of cryptos. Bitcoin has four of them. There's four. There's cash, there's Satoshi Nakamoto, there's bitcoin gold. That's the problem is just a commodity guy. I see crude oils, a lot of supply and prices went up and bringing on more supply. But this. The correlations here are. It's July and I. I think people are being complacent. And yes, I'm fully expect to get haters for expressing a view, but this is facts of where we are.
B
It's not about haters, Mike. S and P disagrees with you. Freaking Clay. Who I love Kathy Clay.
A
She's.
B
She's great. She's now at S P. They just literally came out with a crypto index and their crypto index does not have bitcoin because they recognize that bitcoin is in crypto. It's a totally different use case. And. And so, you know, whenever you talk about the unlimited supply, it's like I don't see how Joe's Bar and Grill going public has anything to do with Nvidia. And yeah, there's a lot of bullshit OTC stocks that don't. That does. That Apple doesn't care about. Honestly, that's the problem that I have.
C
Let's point out the view versus the price I was quite bullish. Bitcoin at 10,000. When Michael say I jumped in 2020, I stayed bullish for quite a while. Jumped off the horse too long. But the key fact is is there is an unlimited supply of cryptos and I think people can push back on that all they want. But prices are validating that view and prices are proving your view as wrong. So maybe you'll be right. But I'm pointing out, I'm going to give you a macro view. By the end of the year, this is probably a short and everything except long bonds. Stock has to go up and certainly we're going to get a little volatility. We haven't had that. But just the fact that we, you know, it's become a bit of a trickling ponies game. I point out we're at the end game. The Fed's got to tighten because inflation's too high, because of too high AI capsic spending and massive wealth creation, the most in history. And it's not supposed to be easy. Near peaks. I remember how my haters, I got pointed out, we're supposed to be selling gold and silver and bitcoin. But that's part of the game. As a strategist, people have to disagree with you and that's why I pointed out now we have to disagree. But I'll take that trade with you. Let's put some numbers on it. I'll short everything to you except long bonds at these levels. And I think by the end year I'll be making money.
B
Well, I guess we'll see. I think bitcoin outperforms for the very idiosyncratic reasons that I mentioned. I think gold is going to basically stay in the 4,000 to 5,000 range for a while unless we get President AOC, in which case gold will be at 10,000 and Bitcoin will be somewhere between 600,000 and a million within her term. And, and I say that and, and it's not. People think I'm joking. I, I am absolutely not joking. I think that there is, there is literally, you know, this is not a Republican Democrat thing. This is a, we have socialist tendencies. You know, the spending will be off the, off the hook and they can't, Taxes just can't raise and you can't do it enough.
A
Right.
B
You know, it's the amount of money printing will be off the charts. The. It is, it is a very big deal. And that's, we're literally facing that in terms of easing or cut. You know, there is literally no way that the Fed is going to use an instrument that the only way that it affects inflation is by cutting consumer demand and causing, you know, recessionary impulses throughout the economy. There is zero chance they're going to do that. That. I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen. Not before the midterms and even, even after the midterms. Seems extremely unlikely going into 2008 unless there is union demand driven inflation. You know, union, you know, in terms of, you know, wage push inflation. If we see wage push inflation, yeah, you're right, but we're not seeing that. Right. That is literally not happening. Wages are actually falling relative to gdp.
C
But Dave, I want to back that up with a big picture macro view. You mentioned the potential for AOC being the next president. That's the cycle we're in right now. It's very reminiscent of. I enjoyed writing about President Trump having the timing of Herbert Hoover. That's where we are the most dependent in history on the stock market going up. So just picture this. Now we all know that cryptos got trumped, basically got Trump. We're going to go down to history and say, yeah, the President jumping on a trade and his two sons telling people to buy it and it's going to go higher. Might go down to somebody legal in the future. We'll see how that works out. But so far they got Trump. They sounded like Irving Fisher in 1929. The permanent high plateau. If the stock market just gets a little bit Trump, that's the complete shift. Now we're already seeing a normal shift in human nature and cycles. When you get extreme Republicans, if things don't go perfectly well, you always go back to the other side for midterms. Now we're getting that. The key thing is midterms are already lost. Something big's got to happen. It's got to get energy lower, which means lower inflation, lower bond yields. Can't have the stock market lower. But that might help. But by the time we get to next election, if we just have a normal correction in the stock market, the sentiment in this continent, in this country, is so negative on those rich people getting richer and the rest of the wage earners, they're 55% of the economy, of the population who actually work, getting worse off. It's a complete shift to socialism. We've seen this before. It's happening in society, cities. President Mondami in Miami. I've met Mary Higgins. She's now a Democrat. This is the cycle. What stops it. There's only one Thing the stock market absolutely has to go up. If it does a normal correction, it's a normal cycle and it might end up with similar to what we had with fdr. That's the cycle we're in right now. We got two years left and the midterms are going to be very decisive. So that's why I'm sticking with off all risk assets is sticking in bonds.
B
Let's talk about FDR for one second before we go because it's not a bad, bad analogy if you own Homestake mining which was the only proxy for gold back then. Based on what was happening, you, you did phenomenally well. I believe that bitcoin will be that asset that does phenomenally well in that scenario. That's the difference. But it could, it's obviously more speculative. But I certainly wouldn't mind gold in that scenario either.
A
Right.
B
You know I want to point out
C
the key things I miss is we all expect printing. Let's talk about printing in China. That 10 year note yields 1.73. And now it's making sense how low it was. Crude oils on an inability stay above 100. They've completely stopped importing. Not stop, but they're importing 11 million barrels a day now it's 5 million barrels they just don't need anymore. They fill up their SPR and then using EVS and batteries and renewables at a scale that's unprecedented. So. But their stock market cap, their debt to GDP is 300. The US it's 130. Their money supply is running double the US almost $50 trillion. That's the second largest economy. Its 10 year note is 1.73. Let's look at the third largest county, Japan. Its stock market cap, sorry it's debt to GDP is running around 250%. It's 10 year note yields 2 and change. That's where we're going. So the key theme is when people point out this endless printing. Yes, I get it priced in. That was 2025's trade. We had the best year ever, ever for gold in a disinflationary environment. That was your signal say thank you very much. That was your signal to get out of gold and bitcoin and all those assets that have no income. And to me it was a signal to look over long bonds and say 5%. That's my point is if I'm wrong on this and the stock market has to go up by the near if I'm right on this, just a little volatility pick up in stock. But this is, this is where we are. It's July. It's the best time to reassess and see what the markets and your. Even August is typical, perfectly quiet.
B
But I mean, you and I look at the same data and come up with totally different conclusions. It's fascinating. I mean, I agree with everything you just said about debt to gdp. Although our debt to GDP is very close to Japan's. If you take unfunded liabilities into account, if you take, if you take, you know, Social Security and Medicare into account, and particularly with Medicare for all on the, on the horizon, if you do get what it is in 2008, but even just today's Medicare were over 200. So we're pretty close to Japan. That has put the entire civilized world in a box. The currencies, every fiat currency through the history has always failed. And this is what failure looks like. It's a debt to GDP getting to an unrecoverable. The only interesting point there is you and I look at the bond yields and you say we're going to become more like them, and I say they're going to become more like us. The reason the dollar's yields are higher is because it's a global reserve currency. We get a lot of benefit for that, but the penalty for that is our yields are higher. And that's the reality. Do you loan a government that's running 200% debt to GDP deficits and fiscal deficits at 30 to 40% of spending. Do you loan that and assume that they're going to repay you in just as valuable dollars in 30 years? The answer is no. You know, monetary inflation is very, very real. And it's going to be expressed somewhere. We've had decades, I mean, literally three or four decades where technology should have delivered massive deflation on the consumer side, but didn't because we've had massive monetary inflation on the asset and every side. And that trend is. I don't see that trend changing. If anything, I see it accelerating. And so that creates differences. And does that. Is there a difference in the price of lumber or in the ability to create medical care? Well, no. I mean, you know, we're seeing expenses escalate out of control in places where technology is not helping. We haven't come up with a better way to, to grow trees yet. That's why lumber prices are much higher. Right. But we certainly have better ways of what we have with food. Yeah, poisonous food. Because we allow our food companies to use all sorts of shit that we shouldn't allow them To. It's not a joke. Spend.
A
Do.
B
Do a health check on yourself after you spend two weeks in, you know, in Europe, you know, compared to two weeks here.
A
Food instead of plastic.
C
Yeah, just. Just a little bit more. In the macro, the average acre of corn, corn Farmland in the US produces about 183.4bushels of 8 of corn 50 years ago was half that. Same with soybeans. And that's why soybeans right now is the same as it was peaked in like 1973. But one key factor I want to point out, the one key fact I need to point out is if you look at our debt, our g. Our stock market cap to our debt ratio is two times over. Two times. That's the highest since 2007. It's also the same time we have bond yields. The highest is 2007. So our debt is minuscule versus our stock market cap. I hate to keep going back there, but that's all that matters. As volatility picks up in commodities and trickles over the stock market, stock market has to go up. So to me, this is a trade potentially just starting. It was my theme at the beginning of the year. It's not going to be easy, but as we get towards the end of the year, this trade, I think, is just getting started and it's not going to be easy. But just look, like I mentioned what happened, corn was a life of contract low just a month ago. And so soybeans a life of contract high just a day ago. You got to make it difficult for people.
A
Yeah. I want to just point out one thing, Mike, that I get to. Did I get to show right before we leave, you know, to be happy to know that Shiba Inu. 22% in a week. And it's funny because on top of that, I want to just read something that literally just hit. I got a CoinDesk daily email that. That comes through. The two largest meme coins, Doge and Shib, together represent just 1.02% of Bitcoin's market cap, down from 7% at the 2021 peak. That collapse tells the structural story of the week. Institutional capital flowing into crypto has no interest in Internet joke tokens. And higher real yields mean the era of easy speculative money is over. Just, you know, I think the memes are dying. Even though we've got one that went up 20% this week. Up 20% when you're down 99% really isn't a big deal.
C
But biggest rallies happen in. In. In bear markets.
B
Yep, that's true.
A
100% true. All right, gentlemen, thank you. 1,005. Three of three of us did it. Mike, it's great to have you back. We're back next week. See you all soon. Thanks, everyone.
B
Okay, bye.
A
Go ahead, Dave.
B
I thought we were out. I thought you were off next week. I thought I got.
A
I might be off, but I'm hoping that you gentlemen with two amazing guests will show up and do the show.
B
Okay, I guess we'll see you next week.
D
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Date: July 27, 2026
Host: Scott Melker
Guests: Dave (co-host), Mike McGlone (senior macro analyst)
This Macro Monday episode of The Wolf Of All Streets dives deep into the pivotal moment for Bitcoin as it hovers near $70,000—a breakout or breakdown could be determined in the next 72 hours. Scott Melker, joined by macro analysts Dave and Mike McGlone, explores the intersection of crypto, equities, commodities, and macroeconomic drivers. They debate the true state of the Bitcoin and broader risk asset markets, chew over Fed policy, inflation, the significance of energy prices, and argue over whether Bitcoin has already entered (or nearly completed) its bear market phase. The discussion is wide-ranging, combative, and packed with data and sharp opinions.