← The Wolf Of All Streets
The Wolf Of All Streets
Crypto Plummets on Trade War Fears! More Pain Ahead? | Crypto Town Hall
01:22:23
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- [00:01]
Scott
Happy day after liberation day to those who celebrated. Hopefully you've not been liberated from your financial freedom and all the gains that you had acquired for a while. What a day it was a lot of us thinking hey, it's priced in, won't be a big deal. Everybody knows the tariffs are coming. That was my wrong opinion yesterday. I was watching as Trump announced everything, thought we were in pretty good shape. 25% on foreign automobile kind of in line with what we expected. Seemed calm and casual. Reciprocal tariffs. Then he brought out the chart. They didn't even give him an easel or anything, they just made him hold it. And he held this big chart with a bunch of from, from what I can tell, digging deeper, made up and incorrect numbers about our reciprocal tariffs. I'm not criticizing Trump here, maybe slightly but seemingly wrongfully calculated numbers as to the tariffs that these countries actually have on the United States. And that's when we dumped trillions in value from markets after hours in a matter of minutes as people realize that tariffs could be as high as, you know, 50% against certain companies. I've spent a couple days here railing against tariffs which I do think could be a great negotiating tool if that's what you believe and are a great tool when used with a more narrow scope, bit more targeted utility as a result. Perhaps I could let the panel dive into what they think of yesterday and then we'll discuss it's more long term than in a matter of days because frankly we can bitch and moan about what it did to bitcoin, but bitcoin has opened and closed the last six days effectively between 82,382 600. It's not volatile at all from that perspective. So anybody have want to give us their first opinions here on what they think of what happened yesterday? Mark?
- [02:07]
Mark
Hey, yeah, sure. Thanks Scott. So I agree. Two weeks ago I thought that 10 was appropriate. It was what we saw in August 2023 and then August 24, two different times. You know, Japan had a bigger sell off. We know when the bank of Japan unwound that carry trade. So I was looking at historical moves recently but then just a few days ago I looked at what the Nasdaq's 8.1% quarterly decline and put in perspective. And I noticed that besides recessions, the only other times we saw the kind of move was Greek in May of 10. This is going back 25 years and then the rate rise with the Fed. But then there was another period. It was.
- [02:58]
Scott
Mark, your your mic is super glitchy. It's really hard to hear what you're saying. I don't know if Maybe it's a AirPod issue or. But if you.
- [03:07]
Mark
I will come back to you. I'm going to sign off. I'll come right back.
- [03:10]
Scott
Yeah, no problem. Anyone like to pick up where Mark left off? I'll let him jump back up. Mr. Anderson, I asked you a question the other day, right? As you kind of got accidentally disconnected and booted, you didn't really have the chance to. To speak. I know you have some thoughts on this topic.
- [03:28]
Mr. Anderson
Yeah, you know what? For me, I mean, I probably would defer to these guys about how they feel about the specifics. I'm more in the line of I don't know how it's going to play out, but the way I like to look at it is more of what were they not doing for the last 10, 15, 20 years? I mean, what path were on? It just blows my mind that somehow everyone's freaking out about this, but they weren't freaking out about the fact that we were going off of a cliff, running 2 trillion dollar deficits. Now, maybe this is an absolute disaster, but I think I made a post today where I rather die trying something different. And again, this might be the worst thing ever. And I think we should delete Trump from it because anytime you bring Trump in, everyone's going to go crazy. But his team is pretty accomplished. You might think they're idiots, but a lot of people would say, oh, no, Lutnick percent these are smart people. Is it going to work? I have no clue. But what I do know is that what was happening was a complete and utter disaster. We're literally a zombie country. We've been running this way forever. We haven't even had GDP growth in the last six to eight years. If you take out government overspending and nobody talks about it, and to me that's the biggest mystery as far as how it's going to work out. I'll defer to these guys and maybe I'll jump back in a little bit after.
- [04:40]
Dave
Scott, can you hear me?
- [04:42]
Scott
I can. Your show is a listener, but I hear you.
- [04:45]
Dave
Okay, cool. Yeah. I hate being combative first thing in the morning. Well, actually, that's a lie. I love being combative first thing in the morning. What Mr. Anderson just said was nuts. We've had a policy for decades and the policy is simple. Export dollars. It's the world reserve currency. Import goods, import standard of living. And the devil's bargain that that creates, of course, is it hollows out Your ability to produce stuff. It's pretty simple, pretty basic. It was an absolute 100% policy choice made at Bretton woods in the 70s after we got rid of the gold standards and started the Fiat era. And it's very, very clear that that's true and we could talk about this forever. But what matters now, without getting into the philosophical arguments, is a very simple thing. What Lutnick, and I'm assuming it was Howard Lutnick, that cree, whoever created that chart is made the most colossal mistake in the history of economic publishing. And that's the hill I'll die on. It is unbelievably stupid. In fact, if it was a high school economics project, they'd fail. Now, let me explain. Lutnick today doubled down on it in the Wall Street Journal. So I would love to see where polymarket says how long he's going to last. I know he's friends with Trump, but I don't see how he lasts through this because that was. And if Howard in front of me, I would just say, what are you.
- [06:15]
Scott
By the way, Dave, before this happened, it was reported that White House insiders said that the joke was that Liberation Day was him being. Was going to be him being liberated from his job.
- [06:24]
Dave
Let me, let me get to the punchline here. So. So two things. First, the chart we all now know was it took the trade deficit with every country and divided it by two and said that's what that was. That those are represented the trade deficit as tariffs. Well, trade deficits can come from a number of reasons. One is tariffs. Sure. It can happen, right? You know, if you put a tariff on something, you make it harder to import. That good. And Trump in the first half of his speech was going through examples of actual things where that was unfair. Okay, now keep in mind, in the first half of the speech, bitcoin traded to 87,000 and financial markets were saying, oh, if the United States is just going to respond to tariffs that are unfair, that's a great outcome. That's what the market was saying. And then we saw the chart. And what the chart says is if we have a trade deficit, we're going to tariff half the trade deficit. Well, that's dumb because the other. There are two other major reasons why you could have a trade deficit with a country or on a product. Well, one is, the most obvious is they're cheaper, better or more capable of producing it. It could be as simple as coffee beans. We have a trade deficit on coffee beans. We don't produce a lot of them. We don't produce a lot of sugar cane either. Right. We just don't. Well, because we can't. So you have to import that. So putting tariffs in response to the fact that we have a trade deficit because we import our coffee or import our sugar is literally clinically insane. And that's a big deal. The second is innovation. Now it turns out the United States is pretty innovative, but if companies like for example, we've allowed and actually encourage Taiwan semi up until very recently to produce most of the world's chips and most of the chips we rely on because, you know, we didn't like, you know, our environmental impact laws. We have lots and lots of regulations that make it very hard to build chip fabs in the United States. And so they built them in Taiwan. Right. And so that was there. Is that Taiwan's fault? Well, no. Is it because of tariffs necessarily? Not necessarily. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't. But it could be. We're out competed and out competition. By the way, the law of comparative advantage may be the most important law in all of economics if you really want to understand free trade rules here. So those things are not non tariff barriers. What are non tariff barriers? Ecological things. So if you're allowed to dump toxic waste in a country where the US doesn't allow that, yeah, that's a pretty good reason to put a tariff on something. But these are targeted things. These should be industry by industry, product by product, detailed painstaking work done by the Commerce Department, not a bold faced chart.
- [09:06]
Scott
So that chart was made by ChatGPT or an intern. I mean there's literally no question there was a 10% tariff on the herd. And McDonald Islands, which are uninhabited next to Antarctica, literally just penguins.
- [09:20]
Dave
And I guess the trade deficit is because we send tourists there to look at them, take pictures. Right? So yeah, I mean, look, the point that I'm trying to make here is this. If there's anybody who believes that, they'll try to save face. But if anyone believes that, Scott Besant in his office and all the smart people that are sitting in that room aren't saying, okay guys, how do we change this? Sometime today or tomorrow or next day or next week, there will be a press release, there will be a statement. It will be, listen, we are going to, the tariffs we're going to enact are going to be product by product with going to go through this, are going to do it right? And we're going to get, the philosophy is 50% between 150% of to equalize Tariffs. If you do that, what will the market do? Well, we know what the market will do because it already started to do it. Right. And so, you know, I understand, understand people selling shit. But establishing short positions now is, at least in bitcoin, is complete idiocy. Because at the other point is what's going to happen to liquidity? And look at the markets. Silver dropped 7% silver, right? Gold. Initially knee jerked down over 2% gold, but the long bond rallied huge. So what is that telling you? That's telling you that the people, the smart people are saying, wait a minute, if this shit is really going to happen, if we're really going to fuck up the economy, liquidity is going to get massively interjected. Well, there's no way the bonds can rally like that. And bitcoin falls, not for any length of time. It's just not going to happen. You need Billy Barhardt up here to talk about liquidity because I love hearing him rant on it. But just understand, I don't actually think these policies will be what becomes law of the land. But assuming they are, then watch for liquidity. Okay, my rant's over. But I'm telling you, it's so frustrating to watch because I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this before.
- [11:09]
Scott
They're a great tool when targeted and used narrowly for specific purposes. But this is the first time that such a blunt force object has been used on everyone at the same time. Maybe that's a negotiating tactic and maybe they're geniuses. That's definitely possible. But the same geniuses who are saying that are also saying that it can replace the IRS and that we will have an external Revenue Service. And you can't be arguing, you can't be arguing that ter that tariffs, sweeping tariffs are being used to get rid of tariffs as a bargaining tactic. And then also talk about how amazing they are and that they're going to create all this revenue. They're just conflicting, they're conflicting ideas. And by the way, it's not external revenue for those who don't understand, because I've seen so many bad takes. Yes, these things can be negotiated. But a tariff, a 25% tariff against China is paid by the United States Corporation importing the Chinese good to the United States Custom Service. It is not paid by China. There are secondary effects where the Chinese may lower their prices, become more competitive. There's a million things that could happen, but you are definitely punching yourself in the face first. No question. That's how this works.
- [12:21]
Dave
There's no doubt. Look, I am, I am not, I understand the concept here, but there's two policies that have to happen. They have to be hand to glove. And the more important one is not the one that he talked about, the more important one is deregulation and getting rid of the fact that it takes 18 months just to file an environmental impact statement to build a, a factory or three years to get the approvals to build shit. You know, it's just. And by the way, these tariffs could work beautifully. But as you pointed out with, with in your show this morning, it takes years. I mean, given our current set of regulations, it might take five years just for someone who wants to build a factory. So all those great investments that Trump announced in the beginning part of his speech, here's the real question. When does the money come in and when does they actually break ground on the factory? And when does it actually start producing goods? Because I guarantee you it's not next month.
- [13:13]
Scott
Mr. Anderson, I think you had your hand up to respond. And then, Mark, I know we have to circle back to you.
- [13:18]
Dave
Yeah.
- [13:18]
Mr. Anderson
Just small point today, real quick, who said I was crazy? I literally said I'll defer to you guys and give, let you guys give the opinions. All I'm saying is to change the conversation slightly is that somehow we're ignoring the bigger problem, which is that we're running 2 trillion dollar deficit to create this clown show going, nothing else. I'm not supporting what they're doing, I'm not defending it, I have no idea if it will work. And I think it's all part of a big negotiation anyway. But I'm just saying that ultimately I'm happy to at least have a different discussion where I say at least somebody for the first time in a decade or two is trying something to shake things up and reverse the curse because we're definitely headed off of a cliff. That's it.
- [14:01]
Dave
And to be clear, Mr. Anderson, I agree with you. Everything you just said, I was responding to the trade deficit point. It's been intentional policy. And I actually was bullish going into this and bullish during the first part of the speech, because I think it does need to be addressed. We do need to stop punching ourselves in the face, as you put it, and just papering over everything with debt. I know Simon has his hand up and I guarantee you he's going to talk about debt and fiat money and how it leads into all of this. And I'm going to agree and be putting up the 100% signs. So anyway, that's enough.
- [14:36]
Scott
Mark, go ahead.
- [14:39]
Mark
Hey, thanks Scott. So Dave, I heard you say two things there. There's two schools of thought in the room. There's Lutnick, who's more of a broker transaction Wall street guy and then there's the macro thinker and Bessant. And I agree, I see that as a chasm or that's going to be somehow resolved sooner than later. As far as the tariffs are concerned, this is a thought I want to throw to the group. You know, anytime you're talking about trade and currency, I think the implications, even if everything gets reversed today will have a broader impact on markets. So here's the first thought. We look at trade and it's a 3% draw on GDP minus 3. Everyone looks at consumption. We're a consumption driven economy. But the terrain, the economic opportunity set is really 25% because it's 14% on the imports and 11% on exports. So that chart that as you said Trump was holding in his hand, albeit not credible, was impacting 25% of economic opportunity of GDP. Now it's not going to all change, but I think that this is why we are having the kind of reaction we are. And it's also what we saw in 2018 where I was just going to say that the Fed was. And this also goes to the liquidity that. Who said it here? Mr. A liquidity is going to come. It's already there, right? We're going to drop rates. That's not a big deal. Price money doesn't matter, supply of money. But you're right, Scott, in 18 it was really like a rolling wreck of what the tariffs had and it was only like 25 basis points of GDP. This is implied if you look at the tax foundation to be five times larger. Again, who knows what's going to happen if it continues. But the scope is five times larger than 18. And we are also in a Q T albeit less starting April 1st. So I think it is impactful. I wouldn't be short Bitcoin for any, any all the money in the world. But I'm not surprised by the move lower. That's all saying yeah, for those who.
- [16:59]
Scott
Don'T remember, there was a Trump had tariffs on China from I think it was 2018 to 2020 to be fair. Biden continued those tariffs largely. But when you look at the outcomes of those specific tariffs, which were because of unfair practices by China, currency manipulation, a number of things, the result was that we did not increase jobs, manufacturing did not increase because these things take time and they had reciprocal tariffs or retaliatory tariffs against. I believe it was pork and soybeans, something else in the United States. And our farmers ended up needing $29.4 billion in bailouts because of the economic impact of the tariffs that China then put on the United States. So we can argue whether they were a good political tool. Perhaps they were. It didn't really work in that point. That leaves me believing that this could only be at the beginning of a negotiation tactic, that using this blunt force object is going, as Dave said, to sort of go back to the drawing board and get everybody in line. But it's hard to fathom right now. Maybe they're playing 40 chess. Go ahead, Amateo.
- [18:09]
Amateo
Yeah, I think of it less as 4D chess and more of just a game of chicken. I just think it's one giant geopolitical chicken game. And I'm no tariff expert. If anything, I'm an expert at punching myself in the face since I work in this industry. But. Yeah, but, you know, when you look at the. I was doing a bunch of research and looking at this. I'm just trying to understand it. And when you look at the 2018 steel tariffs, it barely boosted output more than 10%. It created a few thousand jobs, but it's estimated that it led to 75,000 job losses due to higher costs. I just don't think we have any sort of economic data that really backs up some sort of injection that's going to offset any kind of debt. I think it's extremely questionable. I think it's a game of chicken. And I think when we look longer, I don't know if this is what's in Trump's ear and Lutnick, but I think that as AI, automation and essentially America no longer exporting, like, what are we exporting? What's our output these days, aside from, like, onlyfans, influencers, Western culture, fitness bros? Like, it's very limited. We have to, like, we actually have to do and build some shit that, that we can bring to other countries. So I just feel like it's a chicken game with some idea built into it that we have to actually start making something of meaningful value and that this will create enough pressure to do it so that we can start exporting and making some real money as a country diamond.
- [20:01]
Simon
Yeah. Hey, Scott. So, like, the way that I see this is we can pick between three different things of what this might be. And I guess everyone's got to come up with a narrative and think what it means. And I'LL try to relate it because we are in a bitcoin and crypto space. I'll try and relate it to the bitcoin story as well. I think Dave gave some amazing commentary how this could be gross incompetence based upon his breakdown of the chart and some of the critical errors on that chart and how the market's going to interpret it. That's one story. And if that is the story, this is the bitcoin story. This is why we decentralize. We have here in the world peak centralization, where the blunder of a couple of people's decisions around how to present something on a chart can cause $1.65 trillion of correction in a stock market. That means we no longer have markets. This is just 100% peak centralization, which is what the Fed has essentially created with its central banking system. The second way we can interpret this is that this is a strategic rollover of the debt. We know that estimates say approximately $9 trillion needs to be refinanced. That can either be done on the short term by getting the Fed to reduce rates or long term. And Dave gave some commentary on what the impact of rates are, which again feels like an impossible story. You're trying to push the Fed to do something to reduce rates so that you can roll over the Ponzi and then at the same time there's a competing impact on the, on the 10 year, 10 year rate. Again the rolling over of a Ponzi scheme, which means that we're just going through short term pain in order to restimulate and restimulate through the debt based Ponzi scheme and push the markets further and further away from real markets and the same status quo, in which case Bitcoin will still benefit from dollar liquidity and what it's benefited from in the past. The third thing it could be is that this is in fact a strategy which I think is normally exerted by global capital pushing influence on politicians. Which politicians or the Trump administration are just doing what their backers do. And there is a competing agenda between the globalist backers that back Trump, like the Elon Musk's, like the Mellon family, banking families and an America first agenda. And Trump is simply there to paint a MAGA flag on a change in world order. And so as Dave also said in Bretton woods, after World War II, the post World War II world order was set. It involved America protecting ports, shipping routes and all of those are being renegotiated between BlackRock and China as we speak. As we have seen in Panama and the 26 other ports. Based upon all of the geopolitical shifts that are happening on the war sides, on the results of those types of things. And what is a renegotiation of the system? Well, it just means global capital is essentially saying the world's going to be split up into blocks. A Brit bloc, a Middle Eastern bloc, a European bloc, an American bloc and its allies around it, around its surrounds. And America is going to retreat to being a regional power. And that would be the third option. That means that Bitcoin needs time to adjust to the fact that it became too coupled with the dollar, stock market and dollar capital, and needs time for the global story to recolliborate as more and more capital outflows from the previous global hegemon that's now a regional power. Now, what I think it actually is is a strategy to shift, number three, America being a regional power, focus on all the AI flow. But they'll probably pivot through political pressure to two rolling over the Ponzi scheme. And how do you crash the markets? You crash a market to manipulate rates to do the rollover by, number one, some kind of act of incompetence. So I think it's all three coming into play here. And I think they want to change the world order. But I think America, because of its political process, will shift to rolling over the Ponzi scheme. All three are Bitcoin stories. It's just a different time frame on them all adjusting to the economic reality of this massively shifting time that we're all experiencing right now.
- [25:09]
Scott
I pinned a couple tweets above as you were talking. I was just kind of going through sources to see what the impact has been, obviously. So we saw that the US 10 year yield fell below 4% for the first time since October. I think that's something that Trump has been very vocal and intentional about, probably to force the Fed to start to cut rates. So he's doing exactly what he said in that regard. On a side note, it'd be really great if we actually saw mortgages fall behind the 10 year for once, which hasn't necessarily been happening. To that end now traders are pricing in the Fed rate cut in June rather than July. So clearly all of this is putting a hell of a lot of pressure on Powell to cut rates, which we know that the administration wants. We also have some responses from around the world. French President Macron urging companies to pause all US Investments. He made quite a few comments in the last 20, 30 minutes, basically saying Europe will come together. He said this will weaken the United States, that the Eurozone will look to Asia for more direct trade. Quite a few things there. And there was a story that the United States and China would probably now sit down at the table to bargain, but that China was less likely to give in than many would think because they think that the United States is heading into a recession and has less leverage than they did in the past. Quite a lot going on here. Clearly markets don't like it today. I think the Russell down 5.5% s and P extended to down over 4%. But really, really hard to just look at what happens within 12 or 24 hours of the news and make any grand conclusions, in my opinion. Go ahead Mark.
- [26:52]
Mark
Okay, so let's go positive on that. SCOTT and back to what Simon's saying. This is a crypto and bitcoin channel. There's no other asset that I can imagine owning other than bitcoin because look what's being heard today. The dollar is being hurt. US Markets because of what happened in the Rose Garden. That big orange butterfly flapped its wings and really impacted more local markets than global. And bitcoin is a global commodity. So you know, more protected, less exposed. Like the Russell as you said, down five and a half. So that's one aspect and then the other one is, you know, going back to what I think all of us have at the core of our thesis is the debt load one, the aging demographic two and then that deficit that, that's the one thing that Besson said in his, you know, 333 and then the corollary about rates and, and the deficit going to three just not going to happen. And, and bitcoin will absorb that liquidity that is needed in order to keep that, that deficit moving and the economy from, you know, basically seizing up. So that, that's all bit of a rah rah, but you know, kind of look back and say has anything changed from those intractable structural issues of debt and deficits? The answer is absolutely not.
- [28:18]
Mr. Anderson
Simon.
- [28:20]
Simon
Yeah, again also I always look to those that actually have significant global finance influence. And so whenever blackrock talks I pay attention and try and figure out what they're trying to say. Is it just narrative or is it strategic? But if you look back at we had Operation Chokepoint 2.0 which was to wipe out many of the traditional players and banks that were servicing the industry. We then had the collapsing of the crypto friendly banks. We then had a correction in the market and then the SEC handing the approval of the BlackRock ETF. Then you get BlackRock getting all of its players into Bitcoin. So we had all the disclosures of all the financial institutions of all of its vast pools of capital saying right, we've now got an allocation to Bitcoin and now you've got Larry Fink pushing a narrative that if you don't change, I do whatever BlackRock and those that pull in the strings want America to do. Then we're pushing out a narrative that Bitcoin is not a risk on asset, is in fact a risk off asset and a solution to the US dollar losing its world reserve currency status. I don't believe that those statements and those actions happen as coincidence or in isolation. I think that's the enactment of a self fulfilling prophecy that BlackRock and other financial players are trying to push. In terms of my previous theory on.
- [30:11]
Scott
What'S happening, Dave, I gotta move to you to go ahead and get my back here and host for me as planned because actually of all things, I'm going to interview Senator Kirsten Gillibrand right now. I think I have a lot of things to ask her about specifically today. So that should be a, that should be a fun conversation. Supposed to be about stable coins. I have a feeling I'm just going to talk about meme coins and tariffs because it'll be the most hilarious outcome.
- [30:40]
Dave
Yeah, that could be great. Yeah, I think that when I see the invite I'll accept it. On the co host, the point that Simon just got to about dollar as a reserve status is really interesting because we've seen some interesting cross currents. We've seen the cent understand that he can't just talk the dollar out of that and probably doesn't want to see it go or go away from that because he wants to finance our debt. On the other hand, as my friend Mike Magon often points out, Germany long bond yield 10 year yield is dramatically lower than ours without being the reserve currency. So who knows. But what is clear is there's a desire. Part of today is they're looking at the market action and saying okay, so the stock market's down and that's going to make people mad. But the bond market is up and that's making yields cheaper and that's something they like. And so that's probably why you haven't seen a hurried let's reassure the markets kind of conversation. I think that's going to be coming, but so be it. The other point here is Simon's idea that the US looks wants to focus more regionally and what we can do. Yet that may be true. But I do think that do not underestimate J.D. vance's thesis in all of this. I mean, he's been talking about the hollowing out of the middle class, wrote a book about it in his hillbilly elegy. This is very real to them. It is not surprising that Trump had a bunch of auto workers in the Rose Garden with them yesterday. Right. These are things they care about. Now to do that, they have to take other actions. They have to unshackle American companies from all this excess regulation. And so if they don't do that, none of this other stuff will matter. And that's really the other point. Simon.
- [32:33]
Simon
Yeah, I never listen to what politicians say or what they write books about. I believe that politicians just create narratives for the the backers and the backers are the ones that they have to follow. And so if you look at JD Vance, JD Vaughn's main backer is Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is Palantir. Palantir is involved in much of the artificial intelligence and cyber security side of the military industrial complex. So I look at that and say, well, what is America transitioning to? Well, it is actually building all of the parts of the ecosystem for one insulated region that has natural gas powering rare earth minerals, is the negotiations with Greenland, Ukraine, various around get those rare earth minerals so that you can rebuild the semiconductor chips, which is some of the inbound investment coming from Taiwan. Then you can repurpose that into artificial intelligence. And then you go all the way up to who backed Trump, which is Elon Musk. And Elon Musk seems to be an absolute data machine from auditing all the different areas of the government, from all of the data from cars, from X to X plus xai, which essentially can be combined into a social credit score once he actually combines a stablecoin with Visa. And there are many, many players that were sat next to Trump that are also going to get their stablecoin. And the argument is that Trump has his backing from Elon, plus his backing from the Mellon family, plus his backing from the Israeli lobby. Combine all those together and you can see all of the actions that Trump is taking. Strategic escalation in the Middle east to push to a negotiation. And we're getting the technocracy from the Elon side, plus if you look at stablecoins pushing, the banking lobby pushing to make sure that the yield can't be passed on because that makes a systemic challenge to the fractional reserve banking system. Again, I look at J.D. vance and I look follow the money. I look at Trump and I follow the money and I see all the policy following exactly what one would do if you were investing to exert your vision. And again, anything they say is not what they do. Their job is to just simply put a MAGA story on top of an acceptable way of capital and policy being relocated to corporate interests that back them.
- [35:15]
Dave
Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. I can't see hands and a lot of you guys are listeners. I can't tell. Gary, Joe Amateo, I can't tell if you guys are speakers or not because of, you know, we're, we're, we're in the glitch here. But I mean, Gary, you, if, if you are up here and you made an interesting point about Bitcoin not being subject to tariffs, I think that's relevant. And Joe, I suspect, I suspect your, your kind of calm, reasonable view would also be interesting. But I can't tell if you're up.
- [35:42]
Gary
Here, we're up here. Okay, so, okay, I, I'll, I'll chime in here and I appreciate everybody's comments. Definitely an interesting day. So let's start with one thing. The stated purpose now for about a month and a half. In a half dozen interviews with Besson, Lutnick, even Elon on one of the Twitter spaces a month and a half back said that they wanted to bring the 10 year down. That was the goal. And the idea that this is all, you know, some effort to pressure Powell, I disagree with because they have said specifically that they think the front end rates are not really the problem. It's the long end. And the amount of a credit impulse that will be driven by a 10 year, which is bearing down below 4% in terms of propping up the housing market is going to be significant. So in terms of the market forces that matter most, which are currencies and the credit market, not the stock market, the currency market is telling you right now, and I know if somebody's looking at this, oh, the dollar's weakening. That was precisely what Trump is trying to achieve. That is not a bad thing. That is a good thing. Right? A weakening dollar increases the ability of American manufacturers to compete. That is purposeful. So whoever's talking about the dollar relative to other currencies selling off as some sort of negative thing that was desirable for U.S. manufacturers and U.S. trade in light of our trade balance. The same goes for the credit markets. Right? The credit markets now getting bid, having a significant move down in treasuries below 4% is exactly what the administration is trying to drive from a credit impulse standpoint. So, you know, the stock market selling off, I know that, you know, investors like myself who are heavily exposed to stocks, you know, it stinks, right? Like we don't want to see that. The question is this, as I see it, the question is that if the stock market sells off in a significant way, thereby exacerbating what I call the reverse wealth effect, right, because people spend more among the upper income cohorts when their stocks investments going decline, is that going to be offset enough by two things, a rebirth of American manufacturing and potentially a rebirth in housing driven by lower interest rates, which if you talk to homebuilders, they are desperate for lower interest rates. A lot of the real estate market has been frozen for years now because of the higher interest rate environment. So, you know, you have, in many things you have cost benefit. I think they're taking the cost benefit right now. They're taking the cost of a lower stock market with the hopes that a renewed manufacturing and potentially renewed housing market can offset that detrimental effect.
- [38:28]
Dave
Gary?
- [38:31]
Joe
Well, I just would like to. 1 Bitcoin is performing exceptionally well here, exceptionally well. Goals down, Silver's down, the whole thing's getting trashed. And I've lived through, I don't know, seven of these. It has never, not one time, altered my life in any way. So I would just ask everybody to take a chill, take a big deep breath, like making a move right here. If it were buying, it may be the right move. But this cannot possibly last. This is a re. Setting of the the game and I think it's actually healthy. We're going to most certainly we're flushing out all our enemies in Europe. These people are going mental. I mean absolutely mental. And I think that's the breaking point. Europe is the breaking point. I'm becoming more and more consistent, convinced of that. The people that are driving those five puppets in Brussels, I don't know who they are, but who they really are, trying to put this whole planet on, on an alert and trying to turning in, turn it into a violent place. I don't think that's necessary. I personally think, and I'll end with this, this is going to be very, very good long term for America and long term for me is in the next six months, I'll end with that.
- [39:59]
Dave
I can't tell Danish. Are you up here or you just. I'm seeing you as a listener, but I'm guessing if you're, if you're up. You have something to say?
- [40:07]
Simon
I hate guessing on on that point, Gary. Poland just announced that they're capitulating to a 5% NATO budget. So the war machine in Europe is ramping right up. And that was, I think the desire of the Zelensky visit to the White House. It was to hand over the war machine to Europe, get them to print 800 billion, confiscate 350 billion of Putin's money and spend it on the military industrial complex. That was the strategic handover of the American and Russian proxy war to completely wipe out Europe. And Europe is obviously reacting by falling for all the bait and throwing Europeans under the bus because it's got the European Union and the ECB that are not European first institutions. They are absolutely asset stripping the European people.
- [41:04]
Dave
Well, good thing for the Europeans they have so many innovative companies that have driven to the top of their markets in the world to be able to pay for all that.
- [41:14]
Mark
Yeah, Dave, this is Mark. I just had a friend throw a chat. He said, is this the end of us except exceptionalism? Don't think so. Maybe time to get bargains. And, and I bring that up because what Simon just said about the asset stripping in Europe and how they're eating their own this morning, Apollo's visit, the CEO Zelter, I think said people are starting to dust off Mario Drahy's September manifesto about how far behind Europe is in technology. And if they want to have any place on the world stage, they got to get their shit together from an entrepreneurship and innovation standpoint. So a lot of existential questions to be asked. But as again, I don't know if it was Simon, someone else said yes, Bessant's getting what he wants, lower rates, lower dollar. The question for the group is can Trump put the rug back under the economy without having something break, whether it be credit or something else in case we do go into recession and cash flows kind of stall.
- [42:28]
Dave
Well, look, I can tell you one thing that I know for certain. I know that there are a lot of senior people on Wall street who are looking at this and remembering having echoes of 1987. I know 87 is a long time ago for most people in crypto. Most of you weren't born. I was on a trading desk having built our program trading systems at the time. And the week before the crash of 87, which was effectively sparked by trade deficit concerns, was looked like this on Thursday, another day like this on Friday, and then the absolute bottom fell out on on Monday. A couple of lessons from that first, I don't think history repeats and no, I'm not calling for anything like that. But what you do have to realize is in a day like today when like the Russell is the worst performing of all the indices, the Russell are small caps. Theoretically, if you were designing a trade policy, you would think that small, small caps would, you know, that that was going to protect US companies because they're less multinational, that it would help them. But in reality they're getting punished. That's. People are going to get that, that notion. So understand that that's getting people's attention. The second thing, which is very technical and people should understand it is on days like today, you'll probably see a bit of a relief between now and toward the, you know, as we get toward the lunch hour. But as you approach 3:00 and beyond, that's when another wave of selling usually comes. I'm not saying it will happen. I'm saying that it's entirely possible that it happens because that's when, you know, retail orders, you know, positioning toward the close. That's when funds who have fund, you know, who, who are marked at the close have to process their redemptions. And so you should always watch out for the timing on days like today because that volatility could exacerbate things. And it's just. That's my public service announcement for the day.
- [44:16]
Joe
Hey Dave, can I, can I just bounce in here on what Mark said because I think it's really interesting and, and somebody else prior to him said something about Europe's innovation and business. I don't see how Europe makes it through this. They have no energy. They're the most expensive as first world nations. If they are still a first world nation. They have the most expensive energy in the world. Uk, Germany, I mean, it's. I don't know how they, I don't know how they perform in. From a manufacturing base with no energy, no natural resources whatsoever, how they perform. And if they are reading the same hymn book I'm reading, they need catastrophe like, like the business. The geopolitical market structure that's being created here leaves Europe out. And to me they are the wild card here because they have everything to lose. I'm not even sure they have much to gain. And they're crazy. These are not elected officials and they're not business people.
- [45:31]
Simon
Europe, the irony of this whole thing, and that's why I think it was a US operation. Europe needs cheap gas from Russia and Ukrainian rare earth minerals, totally Ukrainian rare earth minerals, which America is negotiating and cheap gas from Russia, which was the reason for blowing up Nord Stream pipeline in the first place. And those were both CIA operations in order to weaken Europe. So it's quite obvious that Europe is not representing Europeans. And the eu, the ecb, the Fed, the CIA are all in cahoots together to absolutely asset strip every asset of the Europeans for corporate interest. It's quite obvious to me.
- [46:25]
Joe
I concur, man. I mean there's not a. This has to be coordinated. You don't blow pipelines up on a little rowboat smoking a cigar. Okay. That was one of the largest acts of terrorism outside of COVID And it came on the back of COVID if you will. Remember, Covid ended on one day. Okay, Covid's over. And within 24 hours the Ukraine thing popped up.
- [46:53]
Simon
And remember, USAID was funding the Ukrainian press and the BBC press and is still pushing a narrative that Putin is Hitler while America has decided we need to work. So, you know, you're getting that those narratives are still being driven because they just want Europeans to take to foot the bill, increase their NATO budget and just sacrifice middle class Europeans.
- [47:25]
Dave
Yeah, I'm just, I'm shaking my head at the, the, the Nord Stream one because it's, it's really, that one's been very fascinating. There are multiple possibilities. I think the CIA possibility is certainly real. Well, I don't know that we'll know in our lifetime. I don't think anyone's declassifying that. Yeah.
- [47:43]
Simon
WikiLeaks has already revealed all the documents. It was CIA and Biden even said it publicly that, you know, I mean, the, that's, if you, you can go through all the WikiLeaks, type in Nord Stream and it will give you all the declassified leaks, documents.
- [47:59]
Dave
So it, but let me ask you a question. How was that not, how did that not end up into the popular narrative? How does that not get out? Because at the time I thought it was, you know, if you're, if you're Germany, I mean, one would think that's a very big deal. Right?
- [48:13]
Simon
You know, because the European Union.
- [48:17]
Joe
Simon.
- [48:17]
Simon
Yeah.
- [48:18]
Joe
Simon, one second. Okay. Dave, we are still giving children vaccines right now in the United States, man. Well, like there's so many things that we don't confront. It's ridiculous.
- [48:29]
Dave
Yeah. I don't want to go down. Mike, you and I are violently in agreement on, on the COVID response, so. Yeah, and, but you know, we'll, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole.
- [48:38]
Simon
But to answer your question, David, is because the European Union does not represent Europeans. And there was an operation called Operation Mockingbird where the CIA took over all of the media and USAID was an operation in order to take American money that was printed by the Fed and invest it in media control. So the media is just pushing the narrative in order to make the sales of the corporate interests that the Fed and the ECB print the money for. That's why.
- [49:13]
Dave
Yeah, but that part's interesting. So, Joe, and I know, you know as well as I do, people are wondering, they're going, well, why is everything selling off simultaneously? It has to do with, you know, raising desks and liquidity. What I was getting at before was if you're on a trading desk and you have any leverage in any sector, you want to make sure that you're not, you know, going into this sort of thing. And so people tend to sell. We always make the, the statement people sell what they can sell, not necessarily what they want to sell. And so that's why days like today create a lot of opportunity. I mean, you look through what's going on and you see the Russell is almost. It's over six and a half percent down now. The NASDAQ, you know, get pushing towards 6%. You know, it, it creates that kind of panic and panic if, you know, definitely distorts people's ability to make discernment among assets, which I know, I know you understand that. Assuming you're still here, which I can't.
- [50:11]
Gary
No, no, no, no, I am, I am. So. So just a couple things with respect to the bitcoin price action, because this is the crypto room, right? You got to remember bitcoin a few weeks ago was testing on the bottom downside, like 77k. So again, still sitting beaten up in the 80s. I think that's at least some reason for optimism. Can it break down, go back to the 70s, potentially even lower. That's like the 2024 highs. I mean, absolutely, you have to be prepared for that. And the one thing I want to just go back to for a second is I do not understand at all the bearishness on Europe. It makes no sense to me, given this particular climate. Let me just point one fact. Unlike the United States, which is running a 6 to 7% still deficit to GDP, Germany's like below 1%. Germany is going to spend $500 billion of stimulus on their economy in the next couple years. Here, the foreign investment from family offices, they just released a survey. You're seeing upwards of 20% of family offices redirecting capital investments into Europe. I don't understand the doom and gloom over Europe. I think the currencies are showing that as well. I think there's plenty of arguments that can be made that the one glimmer of hope in the world today in terms of an economy outside the United States is Germany. So I don't really understand the narrative that people are negative on what's going on, particularly with the amount of fiscal that's going to come. Unlike here where we're trying to pull back the fiscal bull with Doge and other efforts.
- [51:44]
Simon
It's the same thing. It's the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer. So the GDP number just refers to the upper class, but the middle class is being hollowed out at the same time as switching to a central bank digital currency in October this year, which I personally believe will be a solution.
- [52:04]
Gary
They're not switching US Central bank digital currency. They're running the test pilot for it, which will run coterminously with the sick cash and regular euro correct their beta.
- [52:16]
Simon
Testing in October for no reason other than they want to eventually transition.
- [52:22]
Joe
Yeah, they're not doing a test for shits and giggles. Right. They're doing a test to convert.
- [52:27]
Gary
Well, I mean, that's not really true. If you look at China. I mean, they've completely almost abandoned their stablecoin effort. The digital yuan is actually going to be scrapped. So there are plenty of times where government officials tried something and it's a failure and it gets no traction and they walk it back.
- [52:42]
Simon
Yeah, but China's a rising power with a middle class that's getting wealthier. Europe is the opposite. It's deep in debt, it's got no vision. The rich are getting richer, it's being asset stripped. And the only probable solution if we continue on this path is a universal basic income. So China's a very different story to Europe.
- [53:08]
Gary
Yeah, I mean, Germany has a better debt picture than the United States currently. So I don't understand the deep in debt argument right now by a lot.
- [53:15]
Dave
But the problem, Joe, is. Yeah, I was going to say. Go ahead. All I was going to say is that Germany is the engine, the one engine. And the reason Germany is that way is because they were the last bastion post Weimar of the Bundesbank, basically saying we can't do this other shit that everybody else is doing. But Germany has now been hitched. You know, they're running a race, but the parachuter weights behind them as they're running the race are, you know, Italy, Spain, Greece. I mean, you can Go up and down the list and look at debt to gdp is there, you know, European Union is. It's an interesting idea, but with the economic policies being so divergent, it'd be almost like, you know, if, if New York and California's tax policies had to be owned by people in Texas and Florida, what would happen? It's kind of crazy if you look at the way that it actually operates. But Germany, you're right, is the one place with the debt to GDP that's been reasonable. And that, by the way, is why German bonds are at a much lower yield. But the fact is they still have a lot of responsibility to what they call the European South.
- [54:24]
Gary
But Dave, wouldn't you agree with me that in terms of the ecb, in terms of the politics of Europe, the single most influential country is Germany because of. By virtue of their economic position?
- [54:35]
Dave
Absolutely. 100%. No question. And they do.
- [54:40]
Simon
Europe was always big Germany.
- [54:42]
Dave
But the most important point for this show is, look, I don't see any version of the world where liquidity pumping, yes, sure, it helps the rich and it helps bitcoiners, you know, coming out of whether it's the ECB or Germany specifically. And all the spending isn't going to ultimately be that liquidity that props up assets which are considered financially deserving. Now, some of that financialization has created very extended pricing, but much more in the US Than in Europe. I mean, that is true. And that's why your family office survey shows what it does, Joe, because US Valuations have gotten quite extended relative to European company valuations. That's just fact. But people just assume it, it stays like Japan for a very long time, even when it had crashed in the 90s, was at elevated valuations. It took a very long time for that market to actually find its footing. And that's for a very good reason. Now, I'm not saying the same thing is going to happen here. This is different dynamics, but there's all sorts of cross currents. Anyway, Mr. Anderson, real quick, just one.
- [55:48]
Gary
Thing before we go to Mr. Anderson. There's just some breaking news about two of the finance ministers, one one of which is from Germany, saying Europe needs to band together to force Trump's hand and get him to back down on tariffs. Just thought I'd share that.
- [56:03]
Simon
Yeah, just while we're still on Germany. Look, Europe, you know, the, the euro, the backbone of Europe was Germany. Germany was the backbone, was a manufacturing base. The manufacturing base was dependent upon cheap energy and simultaneously it allowed America to get away with blowing up Nord Stream pipeline, it switched over to investing all resources into renewable energy and it switched off all of its nuclear energy. That is a suicide mission, not working in the interest. And now it's trying to restimulate its military industrial complex through money, you know, through a, a war, stimulus and confiscation of Russia's money rather than working with Russia, which actually solves the solution. To me, that's not, that's not sane politicians, that's an infiltration of German.
- [57:02]
Mr. Anderson
Just to jump in. So I know everyone kind of expanded this conversation to a few different topics, which is, which is fine, I will point out just on that last subject, I think the majority of what's really been going on, everyone's freaking out, of course over the actual recent results, but more likely they've been announcing these things. They went to these countries, they weren't looking to bend much. So essentially they said, okay, let's slap on all these tariffs and then bring it to the negotiating table just to show who has the power. And of course the consumer, the big consumer. America has more power in this situation. That doesn't mean it won't end in disaster. But that's more of the play for sure. Circling back to some conversation that we had before about charts and things of that nature, someone brought up the Russell 2000. I just want to point out the Russell 2000 was booming until Biden took office. This has nothing to do with politics. I'm just making a point that at that moment, from that moment on, going back four years, the Russell 2000 is negative. We're literally lower than we were four years ago. And this is a perfect sign to give you an understanding that this system does not benefit the majority of companies, the majority of people, etc. It's been benefiting the mega caps, the MAG7 and some others, but it certainly doesn't benefit the majority. So there's a structural issue that needs to be challenge, that needs to be changed. Whether this is the right approach. Again, I defer to everyone else. It's probably a terrible idea, but something has to be done. Now, moving over to Bitcoin, one thing I'll point out, I'm a trader, right? I'm a professional trader. I trade charts. So for the people that know me, they may know that, hey, I predicted at 8, 000 that we would hit 69, 000. We hit it to the number at 66, 000. I said we would hit 20, we hit 16. At 16,000, I said we'd hit 99. We went to 109. And the point of me bringing that, in fact, I'll go further. On December 19th I said look for January 20th as a potential top. On January 20th I said watch the reaction today. And my point of bringing all this up is that none of that matters. Those predictions are useless, literally useless. They will have no effect on my actual trading. How people, in my opinion, if they want to do something, most of the listeners are going to be listening from a trader's perspective should be looking at bitcoin. I don't think people should be buying bitcoin right now. If you want to trade, if you say, oh, we sweep today's lows and you want to go on a low time frame trade, sure, take a trade. But being that we've been in a downtrend for so long, since January 20, the idea should be that resistance is going to resist. And it has resisted every single time. Including yesterday. We had multiple resistance. Even a basic trend line which just shows you the rate of change has held up. We haven't even taken that level. 88, 000 is a major resistance because a lot of the guys that like to do order blocks are going to be looking at a five day order block that's now resisted heavily on two different occasions. So from that standpoint, there's no need to jump in. The good thing about this is that whether you've been in the S P or the Russell or bitcoin, you should have had a bearish bias on. Excuse me. And I only look at directional bias. So a directional bias that is bearish. Expecting things to resist or taking some shorts or certainly having more shorts than longs. And therefore this news shouldn't have crushed you if your thinking is in that element. Now, if you're a value trader, things of that nature, so be it. That's completely up to you. If you dca cool, that's fine. But people that are looking to trade, swing trade things of that nature, they should be falling to this category where they're looking to take the road that's going to lead to easier pastures. And for that right now, until we reclaim at the moment a low scale, 88,000 on a closing basis, I would not be looking to long. Bitcoin on a daily scale, low time frame trades, sure. But until you get above 88,000, that number may drop as we go along. You're in a safer position to just wait it out. I'll leave it at that.
- [60:56]
Simon
And how low do you think it goes on your charts?
- [60:59]
Mr. Anderson
Well, I don't really care how low it goes, that's the point. So when I have a bearish bias, it doesn't really matter. I don't have to be right of how long it goes. Now it makes sense. The when we started the election, it was 49,000 was where we were at when the election was in doubt. 67,000 on the day of the election. I think that's a reasonable number to come back and tap. But the idea is maybe we're already putting the bottom. We are seeing compression here. I posted yesterday, I said, oh, this is a nice ugly wick or rejection. Therefore let's keep an eye out if we can maintain a higher low because all bottoms start with a series of higher lows. Now all higher lows do not mean a bottom. So we may see a lower low. But my point is it's certainly going to start with that. So if we can see an area where we hold on close, 78.5 ish in that range, 78.6, let's call it, well then we might have the opportunity to say, okay, we're sowing compression, maybe that compression leads into some expansion and then we can begin to go up again. So I don't really know. I keep my eye, my mind open to how low it goes. It's really going to depend on the public and you know how much more volatility comes in. Who knows, we might see some other black swanish type events or some other reactions that make us jump even lower. Now for me, the way I always look at it, crisis brings opportunity. So the fact that I've been in a bearish mindset anyway because of the trend, I'm happy to see lower prices. Now I don't want it to get too out of hand. Obviously you don't want people losing jobs and businesses going out of business, things of that nature. But at the same time we got to separate ourselves from the news and realize like, okay, wait a second, we're in a business where at 109,000 we all wanted cheaper prices. The cheaper prices are here. I'm not ready to buy. I need to see something reclaimed by the bulls. So in that situation, then I'll get daily scale long. But until that time, I'll sit back and welcome lower prices because we all think this thing's going much higher in the long run and eventually of course they're going to print.
- [62:45]
Simon
And does the panel agree that a 5% correction in Bitcoin on a day like today, would you take that as a pretty, as a pretty good signal or how does everyone think about that.
- [62:59]
Dave
Joe, I think you had your hand up next.
- [63:01]
Gary
Yeah. So I don't have an answer for you there because I want to see how it operates by the next couple days here. But what I'll just tell you one of the things that I think is most interesting, and this is a crypto bitcoin room, is that for as long as I've been In Bitcoin, since 2015, I can tell you there's been these narratives that have permeated like, you know, you can never go below the prior all time high, or you can never make a new all time high before this period. Or you, you know, you always will move like this or there's always the four year cycle. And the four year cycle is the biggest pump of them all. What I, I'm really encouraged about. Okay, let's just say, you know, the economy gets a little soft here. We have a decline in asset prices. Bitcoin kind of muddles its way through 2025. We go higher next year. To me, that's extremely attractive. Right. I think breaking these myths, which I don't, I don't believe full disclosure in the, the cycle theory. Obviously every business has cycle, economies have cycles. That's true. But the tried and true, we're going to pump for three years and then sell off. I think you could have a future of bitcoin for the next numerous years where you have really solid years, some consolidation years. Bitcoin performs closer to the traditional equity market because you have more institutionalization. You don't hear a four year cycle for equities. And if it performs more like that, more like traditional equities over the next several years, that's extraordinarily attractive to more mainstream investors. They would rather have consistent year over year returns of 15 to 20% for Bitcoin as opposed to one year where it goes up in a parabolic fashion and then sells off dramatically. That's not as healthy for market participants to come in. You want that steady stair step climb up. So my view is, I think that by the end of this year, one of the things we might get away from is this myth of the four year cycle and move on to something else that's much more sustainable and more attractive institutional capital.
- [64:54]
Simon
I guess that's consistent with the bitcoin design that there's only a million bitcoin left to mine. And so therefore the impact of those million left to mine would have less impact on the four year cycle. Whereas before it was a significant reduction in supply every four years, that was at happening at a diminishing rate. So it may be that was the design.
- [65:20]
Dave
So yeah, I want to make a couple observations and it's getting close to wrapping up to see if other people have them. Observation number one is something that Mr. Anderson said which is very interesting, which is the Russell is down effectively since the it boomed during the first Trump administration and today, yet it's still outperforming to the down or underperforming to the downside, despite policies that at least on the surface are based to try to help those sorts of companies. So I'm not sure what that tells you, but it tells me that it tells me a few things. The second one is a conspiracy theory because in the last week we've heard from Eric Trump talking about how bullish he is on bitcoin. And I don't know who or what's buying during this dip, but I do believe that there's some smart money accumulating every time we have these wicks down. Now I don't know if GameStop, if their CEO who had previously said he was looking to buy more like Mr. Anderson said when he sees it in an uptrend, if he's taking the opportunity to buy now or is that just capital that's waiting to come in? If so, one way it would mean they're getting in and you probably want to be long the stock. The other would mean that any FOMO that happens when we do break the these things will exaggerate to the upside. But either way, when you talk about Eric Trump, it's pretty damn obvious that he's in the know in terms of what's going to go on. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you threaten a trade war and throughout the entire world that all risk assets are going to drop. So, you know, we'll see what happens. But I, I have a sneaking suspicion that you're going to see a walking back of the numbers and more a the rhetoric that was in the first 10 minutes of that speech yesterday. And we all saw what the market was doing then. So it's just something for to keep in mind. Anybody else have closing thoughts before we wrap? Gary, you want the last word?
- [67:24]
Joe
Restoration Hardware got slaughtered, I mean absolutely slaughtered. Down 69% in one day. Two days. Their stock slips 37% today.
- [67:38]
Dave
Why?
- [67:39]
Joe
Went from 248. God damn, dude. This is a. Restoration Hardware is a luxury furniture company, right?
- [67:47]
Dave
Yep.
- [67:48]
Joe
They, they were trading five days ago at 250, 254 for two and a half. $2.7 billion this morning. They're at 146, down $103, 41 and a half percent. Dude, crushed.
- [68:10]
Simon
Is that a tariff play, Gary?
- [68:12]
Joe
Yeah, total, total tariff. And now the CEO, of course they're buying, you know, they buy from China, put it together and sell it for a monster markup. I spent half a million dollars with this company just furnishing a home. They're really good, but they serve, you know, particular end of the market. And I mean this is like can you imagine being a stockholder and waking up you got a million dollars in RH and Now it's worth 500.
- [68:43]
Simon
And who benefits from buying those on the cheap?
- [68:46]
Joe
Well, I don't know anybody's buying it right now. Like how could you buy into that right now?
- [68:51]
Simon
Well, I guess if, you know, if you know what's coming next in the China US you know.
- [68:55]
Joe
You know what kind of surprised me is that I don't know how Nvidia is not any different than an rh. Nvidia is trading all over the world. Aren't they going to get tariff to death? Does anybody get us? I mean they're doing business everywhere. They're buying chips, they're, they're moving stuff around all over the world. I would have thought they would have gotten crushed if crude oil is getting crushed. I mean, I haven't seen a day on crude oil like this in 20 years. 7% down today.
- [69:27]
Simon
I think there's going to be exemptions for strategically important components and I think semiconductors would certainly fit into that.
- [69:35]
Dave
Yeah. That said Nvidia is still down 6.5% so it's not down like Wayfair, which is down 25% or 25% something percent because of the same reason the restoration hardware is getting crushed. But you know, it's, and, and oh, another one that's down massively today is five below.
- [69:58]
Joe
We're losing you there, Dave.
- [70:02]
Dave
Yeah, someone junk call came in and you can't get rid of it immediately. I was going to say that five below, which is on the bottom end, you know, the opposite of luxury but imports all their crap like their margins will get crushed. So they're getting killed today. But you know, these things actually sort of make sense if you believe it's going to go through. What it's telling me is the market really does believe that a trade war is coming and that's how it's being priced. And so it's, it's definitely that's what's getting priced in on the Stock market, I think, you know, bitcoin is being. The babies being thrown out with the bathwater, as we've said. And a lot of these Russell companies are probably in the same boat. People are trying to decide do they import, do they mostly export? You know, they get their markup, can they, can it be, you know, all this stuff has to get digested. But I think most people believed that they were going to be more moderate and I think that that's what we're going to have to see. And this is going to go on for a while. But the real question is, in my mind is liquidity.
- [71:03]
Joe
Do you think this goes on for a while? Because I, I think this is a very short term event lasting no more than 90 days.
- [71:13]
Dave
Oh, but that a while. I'm sorry. On this show, most people care about a while means days to weeks as opposed to months to years. So, yeah, we're both in the same time frame. I think that, look, they, I believe that you'll start seeing certain changes and you'll get a reassertion. One thing they can't afford, the government can't afford to lose the wealth effect in the stock market completely without taking action. But as my friend Mike McGlone would say, probably another 10%, they're not going to care. But this is half of that in one day. We'll see. I would say one or two more days like this and yeah, you're going to see, if not panic, you're going to see some reaction and. But if it doesn't, if it, if this kind of forms a new level and we kind of trade sideways from here. Yeah, I don't think they're going to.
- [72:03]
Simon
Change a whole lot, does anyone? Because I, I've never followed them and I don't follow any meme coins or anything. But is, is that market just completely decimated with no volume now or what's happening there?
- [72:19]
Joe
What do you mean the main market?
- [72:21]
Simon
Yeah. Is there like all of those meme coins, are they just like trade gone down to zero with no liquidity now? Are they, Is that what this. Because I just don't follow it. But if anyone follows it.
- [72:31]
Dave
Well, I mean, Doge is basically performing well today. Weirdly, it's at the same price level and that's like the biggest one. I mean there are probably a bunch of others that are getting absolutely slaughtered.
- [72:42]
Simon
Yeah, that's a proof of work. I'm just talking about all the Solana pumps and dumps. So they just zero. And the fun, the pump fun stuff.
- [72:51]
Dave
Yeah, I'M looking through the top hundred right now trying to find something. I should go.
- [72:55]
Joe
You know what, Dave, while you're looking for that, I'd like to go back to the losers if we got a little time. Because the losers, it's really amazing for the audience, the top 15 or 20 losers. Just notice the sector. RH Restoration Hardware 5 below Wayfair, the Gap, Urban Outfitters, Shark Ninja lost 20%. All these guys have lost over 20%. 22, 41% overnight. Elf Beauty, Coherent Corporation down 17%. Under Armour down 17%. Academy Sports down 17%. American Eagle down 16%. And on and on and on. Right? Just Ralph Lauren 16%. Abercrombie and Fitch down 16. Sketchers down 16. Crocs down thick. This is retail, man. People are buying they don't need. I'm going to just say that again, okay? People are buying stuff that they don't need. Human beings are not going to suffer because they buy less Crocs. Now the shareholders might, but Joe Consumer is not going to get hurt buying less Crocs.
- [74:06]
Mark
Box.
- [74:06]
Joe
I don't care if our GDP falls down, if our consumption gets more disciplined and people aren't going into debt to buy stupid shit, this country will be a better country.
- [74:19]
Dave
Maybe. But. Yeah, look, I ranted about this a lot, Gary. It's a question of do we care more about consuming material crap, as you would put it, or producing stuff? The truth is, if you really get down to it, from every single psychological study that's ever been done, the material stuff doesn't bring nearly the happiness that doing a job and building something does. That's just right. That's just fact. Now that whether or not, but because it takes so long to get those jobs created and get things moving, will that be enough to change what's going on politically? Whereas the dopamine hit of being able to buy a new pair of whatever is faster. So you know, that's really the question, right? You know, it really boils down to that. And there's a bet being made by this administration that they could suffer through 2025. As long as they write the ship by middle of 2026, they'll maintain or increase their power in the midterms. That's really what they care about. Because let's make no mistake, if the, if the Republicans lose the House, then the last two years of this administration will be fighting bullshit impeachment again. Because we all know that's how it works, right? You know, and, and they want to avoid that. So they're doing whatever they can. That's one of the reasons they're moving so expeditiously to do this now, because they want to get the trend established next year. And so you got to be careful when you're looking at that answer to Simon, your question, you know, fart coin is down over 30%, 24 hours. I mean, does that qualify as going to zero? No. Still worth $372 million, which is 371 million plus more than it probably should be. But, you know, you could, you could talk about it. And I mistake. I look at the wrong thing on Doge. Doge down almost now.
- [76:10]
Joe
Hey, Dave, what happened to Newsmax? Okay. I mean, we got to talk about Newsmax before we close because that was really a very interesting topic. Four days ago, it's trading at 4650. And I think on the 1st of April, it was trading at $233. Am I seeing this correctly?
- [76:28]
Dave
Well, what happened was it IPO with a huge pop. Yeah, Right. So, you know, it had a huge. The chart looks like a pyramid.
- [76:37]
Joe
Yeah, exactly.
- [76:38]
Dave
So the IPO day, so that it's actually never really traded down at the IPO price. Right. So, you know, it traded up to, To. It's crazy. You know, up to 233. And now it's at, at 46. I think the IPO price, 278.
- [76:53]
Joe
It peaked at, man.
- [76:54]
Dave
Right, but you're right, but the IPO four days ago, I think was 40. So despite this carnage, it's. It was a 39 or 40 or something like that, right?
- [77:05]
Joe
Yes, yes, you're correct. So, and, and on 331, it was. It was $44.
- [77:11]
Dave
Right, but that was. Yeah, but it's. But I, I'm just talking about. It hasn't gone below its IPO price, which is obviously the volatility is insane, right?
- [77:22]
Joe
Oh, my God, dude.
- [77:23]
Dave
You know, it's. It's insane volatility people talk about.
- [77:26]
Joe
I mean, you, you were making the point because I said I'd shark the out of this thing and it's good luck. You can't short it. There's no shares to buy, so there's no shares to short. So I was like, yeah, that's a good point. I would have shorted this at 100 and I would have gotten my face ripped off at 233. Well, 45 bucks.
- [77:44]
Dave
So one of the interesting things about the stock market and one of the reasons why crypto is much, much better, and I'm going to basically give a talk and make the point about a bunch of people in D.C. senior financial industry executives that many of the problems in the stock market will be solved by going to crypto rail. So you're talking about one of them. When something IPOs in the crypto world, the borrow is already there, the leverage is already there, the derivatives trade at the set open more or less within a day of when things trade in the stock market. You get those first few days where the supply is controlled by the investment banks. You can't really short it very well. And it's only if the company wants to sell more out of what's called a green shoe that you can do that. And the whole way that short shorts work is you have to, you know, you have to do a locate and then a borrow and go through the. The dynamics don't matter, but they suck. And so the market around IPOs are ridiculously inefficient by the way. You know who benefits from that? Everybody. Because the, the it means that it's more likely to have constrained supply. So the corporate insiders like it, the investment banks can charge more. So they like it, you know. You know who doesn't like it retail. Who becomes exit liquidity to the VCs who actually put it in in the first place. So it's a big difference and this is a crypto show. But if you want to understand how crypto is better, that's one clear way it's better.
- [79:06]
Simon
Sorry, sorry for the tying the two together. Do you reckon this changes anything? So two of my portfolio companies have announced public offerings. One Circle said they're going to be doing near soon and Kraken said they're doing a billion dollars of debt to IPO next year. Seems like Kraken's got the timing right and Circle might need to change. Would you. Would you pivot Dave, or jerk. And I'll just go ahead.
- [79:33]
Dave
If I were, if I were Circle, I would get into the IPO market as soon as humanly possible post the the passage of and the reconciliation between the stable bill and the genius bill. And I'll tell you why. Because they're going to be able to make tons of money. They're going to have tether as a comp of the most profitable company in the world because those bills ban yield as you well know, or likely to. Yet within a year there will be adaptations in the market that will be competing for. It's much less likely that stablecoins will be a holding vehicle to trade. And what you'll end up with is Other coins that do pay yield that people will use to hold, and they'll flip it back into stable coins when they want to trade, and that will decrease their overall profitability. And right now the market's not thinking about that. And so I will go out there quicker. But that's. That's neither here nor there. That's just my thought process on stable.
- [80:25]
Simon
So I. So I sold into pre IPO private market just based upon my experience at Coinbase, because I could have got 100 billion for Coinbase and then it went down to 30 billion. But I've sold. I've sold. I sold about $10 billion. But I was in really, really early. And I think the ipo, if it's near term, the rumors are, I think that they'll be doing it for 2 to 4 billion. I'm not sure whether that happens or not. But what you're saying is you'd want to be public before the actual bills get announced and try and get all the pump into that and get a.
- [81:07]
Scott
Lower valuation, get hired.
- [81:10]
Dave
Well, no, if I'm, If I'm the insiders, I want to go. I want to time the IPOs right after the bills get announced. But you. But the IPO process takes time, and the bills take time. So they're trying to. I think they're trying to game it to where they go live right when the bills are signed or the bill.
- [81:25]
Simon
Yeah. Which is essentially do. Do the early investors like me get the upside or do the retail investors get the upsides? And normally it goes in favor of the. The private equity is what you're saying, 100%?
- [81:39]
Dave
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. That's typical. Now, obviously, if there's a trade war, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever, but, yeah, the whole system is designed for that early. To get early investors, the best return. That's how the system is designed. So anyway, we've gone down another rabbit hole. It's 1141, which has definitely run longer, but some of us felt the catharsis of talking, so I apologize if I talk too much, guys. Anybody else have anything else less to say, or do we all just kind of want to watch how all this plays out and talk again tomorrow at 10:15? Once again, as Scott always says, everyone up here, give it a follow. Understand? We'll be back again tomorrow morning. So for now, take care, everyone.