This is the most important chart for the US right now.
Historically when one spikes the other follows. Now that we are a week past Thanksgiving, the US spiked to over 100k, a 2-month high and rising fast.
Is the US on its way to 200k over the next few/several weeks?
2/6
Current COVID policy is a disaster. It is based in one metric, panicking over case counts.
This is wrong but this is not going to change.
3/6
I noted this yesterday with Portugal.
They have an 87% vax rate, mid-90% range if you exclude under 5-years old (not approved yet), and yet their cases are going up and they are locking down.
@WHCOS rejected it. He honestly thinks that when COVID is a problem (again freaking out over rising cases) they should command everyone into the basement, and this makes the ECONOMY better!
Really?
6/6
So, what will happen when the US spikes to 200k+ cases, following Europe? The reasonable bet is lock everything down and crush the economy.
Is this what is bothering the stock market?
It's all about what is coming in the next few weeks and what the policy response will be.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
* BITCOIN PLUNGES MORE THAN 20% IN SATURDAY TRADING
As the chart below shows, BTC is still down about 11%.
If it closes here (midnight), this will be BTC's worst day since May and its fifth worst day in 2021.
2/6
BUT! ETH is only down 4.4% and it has seen 38 days worse than today.
3/6
BTC (red) has really lagged of late. It is way behind ETH (blue) and the overall market of coins (black).
In fact, BTC is now "only" up 26% YTD. The idea that BTC could lose money in 2021 is coming into the conversation.
Lost in the news this week has been the huge "kink" in the T-Bill yield curve between Dec 15 - 23. This is not a year-end problem as that would be a Dec 31 kink.
The market rapidly pricing in a technical default.
Notice how much it has moved since Monday (Nov 30).
2/3
Back on Oct 5 (orange) the T-Bill curve also had a big "kink" anticipating a technical default, then expected to be Oct 18 (or 12 days away). The next day Congress passed a $480 billion increase in the Debt Ceiling, extending it to "late December."
3/3
Now (blue above) the "kink" is even larger than Oct and instead of being 12 days away, the market has this more fear of a technical default priced in 13 to 19 days away.
The market's message ... "buckle up, it's coming."
The desire among investment bank bank economists, and the Fed, that inflation is transitory is so strong that they either ignore data that conflicts, or intentionally get it wrong.