Get started

Fiat

Why Governments and Banks will be KILLING their currencies!Before I begin my discussion on Inflation and Deflation, I want to preface by saying I still expect the US Dollar will be going higher, and this will exacerbate the world's problems. This is linked below. Of all the questions I receive regarding economics and monetary policy, the question on what is inflation and deflation, and why it is important, is at the top of the list. This blog post will dissect what inflation and deflation really are, and why governments and central banks love inflation…while hate deflation (albeit discreetly perhaps). Remember, now a days, inflation and deflation have a lot to do with the funny money policies of the mercantile/keynesian school of economics…which are socialist in nature as they encourage big government and government playing a large role in the economy, to a point where they manage it and we get no true free markets. So, the common definition of what people are taught about inflation and deflation are: Inflation is when cost of living and prices of things go up. Deflation is when cost of living and prices of things go down. What are inflation and deflation really? Inflation is when the currency of a nation weakens, that it now takes more of the weakened currency to buy something. Deflation is when the currency of a nation strengthens, that it now takes less of the stronger currency to buy something. This is actually pivotal right now for the US-China trade war. According to Keynesian economics, a weaker currency is great for exports, while a stronger currency is bad for exports, since nations will look to buy from the cheaper nation. China likes a weaker currency, which they actively manage, as a way to boost their exports. What they really are doing though is they are importing inflation, making it look like their economy is growing, while exporting deflation, making the other nation, in this case America, appear as if their economy is not growing. This is why China is labelled a currency manipulator as the Chinese want to keep the currency weak compared to the US Dollar. To be honest, every nation does this although they do not say they actively intervene with their currency like the Chinese. So why inflation? Why do central banks (western) want to target 2% inflation a year? Why do they want to raise living costs by 2% a year? First and foremost: Inflation is Taxation. The more expensive things get, the more tax revenue can be collected by way of sales tax and property tax etc. Something your politician that says they want to lower costs will not tell you…especially when government is large and bloated and has many social programs to pay for which requires tax revenue. Inflation is also largely psychological in nature. It can get to an extreme point where people lose confidence in the government, banks and fiat money where we get hyperinflation as people distrust the further and extreme devaluation of the currency they are supposed to use. When a central bank sets up an inflation target, they expect that people will say “oh man, I need to spend money now otherwise things will get more expensive next year and going forwards”. This is a way to encourage people to spend money and boost the economy. It gives the impression the economy is improving so people and business’ will spend money. Interestingly enough, at the most recent Fed meeting, Fed chair Jerome Powell talked about aiming for 3% inflation targets…attempting to spur people and business to spend money. Inflation is great for business’ (and government) because they can borrow money to invest and payback with cheaper dollars. Let’s say rates to borrow are at 3%, and inflation is at 2%. In real terms, rates are 1%. Going forward, you will be able to payback your debts with cheaper dollars. Western governments have a lot of debt. They want to use inflation to handle their debt loads. This is part of the reason why western central banks are cutting interest rates. To weaken their currency (inflation) so people and government can payback their interest payments with cheaper dollars, and service their debt. You can read my reasons on why central banks are cutting rates here. This of course really has not have the effect it was supposed to have. A lot of people and business’ know the real economy is not improving. It really has all been financial engineering. It is a better bang for your buck as business to borrow money for share buybacks than investing it into the real economy by building factories and hiring new workers. All funny money. So deflation. Why, might you ask, do government and central banks not want to make living costs and costs of things cheaper? Very simply: Because government has not found a way to tax lower living costs….although the socialists are saying this can be done with the green taxes: tax for breathing, km driven, empty rooms, and quite frankly, a tax for just being human. Psychologically, deflation makes it appear the economy is worsening. It can be a self fulfilling prophecy. If people know things will be getting cheaper going forward, they will wait for things to get cheaper before they purchase it, especially assets and real estate. People do not spend money, business lose money and cannot make profits, and you get a recession. We have seen this recently in Japan and Europe. Where they have had constant deflation, where in Japan, many have become renters because they get no equity in their home, and the home loses value or stays the same year by year. To get some sort of inflation, they have resorted to negative interest rates, forcing people to pay the banks if they save money rather than spend. They thought people would spend since they are losing money in real terms. The central banks cannot admit their funny money policies have failed, they say they have not cut deep into the negative enough, nor did they devalue the currency enough. Digital money will be coming as it will force you to keep money in the banks and pay them monthly for doing so. One can say that the people of Japan and Europe have lost faith in the central banks and their funny money policy. Once again, this is all to do with the mercantile/keynesian soft money regime of economics. With soft money, government and banks can devalue currency for policy purposes while it generally hurts the citizen in the end. We are at a period where central banks have run out of tools…besides lowering rates further negative and adopting digital money. When central banks received this power to devalue post 1971, central banks became powerful, and the press conferences have turned into the media circus’ they have evolved into today. They are rock stars and have immense influence. Just want to end with a quick thing regarding Paul Volcker who was Fed chair between 1979-1987 and passed away at the age of 92 a few weeks ago. Before central bankers became rock stars, and we did not have funny money. Mr. Volcker had to rent an apartment in Washington when he took the Federal Reserve Chairman job…his previous job as New York Fed Chair paid more than the post in Washington. His wife had to go back to work in order to live comfortably. A true civil servant. When money and producing money becomes easy, you get people flocking to finance and banking. Banking then becomes the largest part of economies. Pre-1971 and in a hard money system, most bankers and traders needed multiple jobs to support themselves.
COINBASE:BTCUSD
by Uncharted-FX
3
Repo Madness Continues!www.newyorkfed.org Repo has been the talk of the town lately, and the Federal Reserve has so far downplayed the issue at hand. Fed chair Jerome Powell did mention this problem in his last FOMC press conference, but again told journalists and viewers that this is not quantitative easing (QE). Repo and QE both inject money into the system. he difference is really new money vs old money. In QE, the central bank purchases bonds as a way to inject money into the system as this purchase sends money to the primary dealers (banks). This is done to keep interest rates low. Bonds and yield have an inverse relationship: when bonds go up, the yield drops and vice versa. With QE you can get to a very crazy environment (one that economic students in post secondary for the last 10 years know nothing about as it was not part of the curriculum) which is negative interest rates. This is what we see in Japan, Europe and Switzerland. Basically the central banks in those countries have killed their debt markets. The central bank is the only one buying bonds at the auctions because no one in the right mind would buy an investment knowing they will collect less money than they invested when the bond matures. Now a days bonds are being traded because you can find a bigger fool who will buy them. I have outlined this as the problem with real estate and stock markets around the world rising as there is nowhere to go for yield now. Central banks have forced money away from bonds to chase yield to those aforementioned markets. The second way to inject money into the system is through repo. Banks have to keep reserves with the central bank. Generally when transactions are done, the reserves held in the central bank changes. For example Bob banks with Bank A and buys a coffee from Jen who banks with Bank B. When the transaction is through what really happens is that Bank A’s reserves with the central bank is credited (reduced) and Bank B’s reserves are debited (increased). This happens on a daily basis at a time when all balance of payments are settled. Of course if both bank with the same bank, then nothing changes, the mechanism still works the same way. When banks need to borrow money for the short term, they can borrow from the reserves of other banks at the Fed Funds rate (for the US). When other banks do not have much reserves left over, repo is needed to inject more money to keep the interest rates low. Interest rates are really the price of money. If there is a lot of money and banks can lend due to the environment, then interest rates can be low. If you get into a period of time when nobody wants to lend money because of big risks, uncertainty etc and there is not much cash being floated into the system (people want to hoard money) then the price of money (interest rate) has to go up in order to entice people and banks to part with the money. So when interest rates spiked up to 10% in the US, it was because there was no money left in the reserves. A really scary situation. When the Federal Reserve injects money through repo, they take collateral from the banks. The Fed says this collateral is US treasuries from the banks. However, I would not be surprised if toxic assets are being passed to the Fed so the banks do not have to take a loss on something they know will lose. In this way the difference between QE and repo is new bonds (bought up at auction) vs old bonds (collateral that the banks already have and is exchanged). Both operations inject money into the system. If you follow my work, I have outlined why this operation will not be named QE because it would illicit a confidence crisis. QE was supposed to be a one time desperate policy initiated by the central banks to prevent another 1920-30’s type depression. There was so much bad debt in the system that it could not be allowed to fail. Forward to today and there is more debt now. The real economy has not really improved. Financial engineering by keeping interest rates low, have made people go into debt to buy things they really can’t afford. Economic growth is not based on real fundamentals. If QE is brought up again, then people will realize that QE actually did now work. Central banks were wrong, their monetary policy did not work. Once people understand this, the realization will be that we are stuck in a QE and 0% interest rate environment forever. Central banks had no plans to raise interest rates and get off of QE. We are now in a managed economy and central banks will morph into the BUYERS of last resort as they cannot allow things to fall. Not only will they have to buy bonds to keep interest rates low, they may need to buy other assets just to keep the system propped. We are already seeing the Bank of Japan and Swiss National Bank buying stocks and ETF’s. In other words, central bank balance sheets are expanding. New York Fed Senior Vice President Lorie Logan posted an article titled “Money Market Developments: Views From the Desk”. It was quite something. So when repo began, the Fed said they were promising an average about 45 billion dollars a day to provide liquidity to the banks. They said it was only temporary, but then this number turned to 120 billion a day, with the program being extended from October 24th, until next year. This article indicated that the average repo daily is now 190 BILLION per day. Take a look at the chart (figure 3) at the top of this post and you can see it is pretty close to this average. This is possible because the US Dollar is the reserve currency so there is an artificial demand for it meaning the US can print as much as they want and do not have to care about deficits…this is why China and Russia are attacking US Dollar demand. Both Europe and Japan can do this type of monetary policy too because they export a lot of goods meaning other nations buy Euro’s and Yen for trade…creating demand for those currencies which warrants printing. To put this number into perspective, the stock market cap for Goldman Sachs is 79 billion, for JP Morgan it is 407.7 billion and for Wells Fargo it is 228.3 billion. Once again, I have mentioned how this will be indefinite. It seems like something has broken and the Fed may be losing control of the system. They will throw as much money as they have to in order to keep this propped up. Balance sheets are expanding. They have pretty much erased all the progress from Quantitative Tightening for 3-4 years in less than 3 months with this repo madness. Central banks are stuck, and it is all about maintaining confidence in the system. They have to appear as if they know what they are doing and everything is okay. At this blog, I have been warning about this confidence crisis. I believe we are very close. Right now the market believes the Fed. The Fed is making it appear as if they are pausing on their interest rate cuts. However, I believe they will cut in December/January. Once this cut happens, people will begin to realize the game. Also, the Fed is running out of excuses. They have to maintain this cutting rates in a strong economy narrative by using geopolitical factors. In the end they are cutting rates mainly for three reasons 1) they know a recession is coming, 2) as a way for government and the public to service their debt loads which are increasing, and 3) perhaps the most important, to attempt to weaken the US Dollar (although I have outlined through my work why the Dollar will likely go higher and how this is what will cause problems for the Fed…perhaps lead to another Plaza accord type deal). The problems in the world get worse as the US Dollar gets stronger. So again everyone, not a dull time to be alive. Repo madness continues and it shows no sign of stopping.
COINBASE:BTCUSD
by Uncharted-FX
The current state of currencies, and what needs to be improved"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust." - Satoshi Nakamoto 1. Accepted Government Fiats (Majors): 10/10. Businesses are required by law to accept the country currency, and problems are extremely rare. When moving, currencies can easilly be traded between each other (Majors, with some countries it gets more complicated). Crypto (Bitcoin): 1/10. Some businesses are accepting it. Very few. Businesses are not very eager to accept it because of low score on other factors, in particular (4). Gold & Silver: 1/10. Currently not very accepted, but if end up in a foreing country or international waters you could negociate... You'll enbd up paying double thought. ==> Dependant on the law and also other qualities on this list. Crypto can score 10 here. 2. Elasticity - Perfect scenario: is usued/created in parallel of GDP growth, and contracts when people borrow too much (or gdp goes down) I think this is the main reason why we have fiats everywhere today. This feature is absolutely indispensable (and fiats make it easy). Governement Fiats: 3/10. It's not expanding and contracting as the economy needs, but as the incompetent central banks want it to. Short version, it's just really handled terribly. It could be done right, but it is not. At least the economy is not frozen because of the currencies limitations. Crypto (Bitcoin): 0/10. I can't speak for all cryptos, but clearly Bitcoin is absolute garbage here. The supply is limited and that's it. Hard limit. And it's not like we only mined 1% and could ignore this. Issuance is not dependant on the economy at all. If GDP triples, there won't be 3 times as much Bitcoin. Bonus negative consequences are that people have no incentive to spend any... Just "hodl" and make money for doing nothing. It's just objectively so bad. Gold & Silver: 5/10. In a scenario where mines are highly regulated/controlled, a central authority could mint or store based on the economy need. But we all know how it always ends up... They are going to use their reserves or mine more to finance a war, or just because they got bored like the FED... ===> Perfect solution here would be a free market... With traders buying and selling the currency based on gdp. It can be issued based on the free market data for a year or something. A cryptocurrency, sure, imagine. It could have in its code this incredible feature, and the blockchain code itself would mine the right amount of coins based on the market/GDP info. Someone tell Craig Wright to do this! 3. Transportable Government Fiats (Majors): 9/10. Pretty good for this purpose. Million in cash will be complicated. Electronically it's ok, banks will do it rapidly enough. Crypto (Bitcoin): 10/10. Pretty much as perfect as can be. You can transport any amount anywhere as long as they have an internet connection. Gold & Silver: 7/10. Large amounts can be transported. 50,000 usd hold in a small gold bar the size of an iphone. For millions you'll need a bank and move it electronically. 4. Stable price (including inflation) Government Fiats (Majors): 8/10. The price is not so volatile it's impossible to use but the central banks are prone to suffocate people. The US central bank was created to prevent government from hyperinflating their currency (for example printing money to pay for a war), and it is better, but there is room for improvement. Right now central banks are printing imaginary money, as well as buying stocks, the FED has a 4 trillion balance sheet, which had the result of rendering the 90% absolutely broke. And the 10% are wealthy as ever. Over the long run, in the case of the US (this is the chart I have on tv), we see that inflation has not outpaced real gdp much. Can be improved, but it is not too bad. The pound which is 400 or 500 years old has done well for all this time. Most majors are ok here, not sure about the recent euro. Crypto (Bitcoin): 0/10. Well... Obviously. The main selling point of Bitcoin "to fight inflating currencies" is its main weakness. US "real" inflation means the usd only lost 35% of its value over 61 years. Bitcoin is down 52% from its high less than 2 years ago (no need to inflation ajust here, impact is tiny), and regularly loses 35% of its value in a day. Gold & Silver: 9/10. Historically have kept a rather stable value while they were used. Value dropped hard a couple centuries ago when the spanish introduce a huge supply of new world gold to the old world. We are NOT suddenly going to start mining incredible amounts from asteroids and the ocean. That argument is beyond idiotic. People need to stop watching star trek so much. I only mentionned this to laugh at the expense of the clowns that use this argument. 5. Durable: Doesn't rot, rust or evaporate. Government Fiats (Majors): 9/10. Paper money can get used, but you can change it, old notes get destroyed and new ones get created. Plus electronic money doesn't perish. All good. Crypto (Bitcoin): 10/10. As long as there is no hack or bug of course :p Gold & Silver: 10/10. Last for eternity, never has any issue. 6. Economical (to create) OR inherently valuable. Government Fiats (Majors): 10/10. Infinite amounts of money can be created out of thin air at nearly no (direct) expense. Crypto (Bitcoin): -1/10. 0 fundamental value unarguably (I don't even know how anyone can argue this). While creating them is more expensive than what they sell for, in 90% of the world. And as the price fluctuates this gets better or worse, usually worse. When the price goes down miners lose (unless they shorted), when the price goes up more eager new miners get excited and push the price of mining up so miners lose again. Gold & Silver: 5/10. Actually gold is "overvalued". Its value as a commodity is not that high compared to the price. I don't really know about silver. So here it's meh. Salt probably outscore this. 7. Homogeneity All 10/10 here. 8. Divisible Government Fiats (Majors): 9/10. Can be divided down to tiny fractions. Electronically there is virtually no limit. Crypto (Bitcoin): 10/10. Absolutely no limit. Can be divided infinitly. This is absolute perfection here. We cannot innovate further. Can't divide more than infinitly to any number wanted. Gold & Silver: 7/10. Coins or blocks or electronic value at the bank? It's not that bad but far from perfection. Historically the maleability and ease to mess with made those pretty good for this, but far from perfect, and we can now do much better, we reached perfection. 9. Supervised There has to be some sort of regulation, some way of printing the right amount. As well as a body being able to take decisions when there are conflicts or uncertainties. Also to lend money and fix interest rates. Control a country or countries debt. Controls financial institutions, in particular banks. Government Fiats (Majors): 5/10. Central banks overdo it and suffocate every one. They are so incompetent. Yikes. Pumping the stock market and creating alot of anger hate and a political divide in the world. They may single handidly create world war 3. Maybe I should score this -10/10. Crypto (Bitcoin): 0/10. Beurk. Alot of cryptos are using "smart contracts" and this may be a step in the right direction. But of course it is missing a lot. There could be a scenario here where the economy gets killed by its Bitcoin currency. Bitcoin could be regulated and everything but there are limits. It's built in as a feature to be totally lawless. No one can guarentee the money borrowed will be paid back. No one to act in case of an emergency. No central authority to lend money to money lenders & also set rates (so oligarchs will lend money at the rate they decide just like in the 19th century and the world will be their slaves with no light at the end of the tunnel, or during germany just before the NAZI). On this aspect, Bitcoin is one huge pile of excrement. Gold & Silver: 10/10. Price is dictated by the free market. I love this! Jk I don't know tbh. Depends who controls the supply and regulates it. 10. Scarce/Difficult to counterfeit. Government Fiats (Majors): 5/10. The numbers in banks database can't just magically appear right? Notes can be counterfeit if the person accepting them isn't paying much attention. Doesn't happen that often. To remedy to this rather poor attribute here comes the justice system, countries are threatening to punish those that do counterfeit their currencies. Crypto (Bitcoin): 10/10. Unless you are stupid enough to buy "physical bitcoins" from "some dude" on the street, Bitcoin scores 10 here. Gold & Silver: 6/10. I guess you can make fake precious metals, maybe some iron bar coated with gold. For big amounts people will check... It's not considered most important, and currencies are able to function even without scoring perfectly here. Still... really not that great to not be at 8-10/10. 11. Easily recognizable: No slow weighing etc. Government Fiats (Majors): 8/10. It's easy to recognize. The problem is it's not easy to be 100% sure you aren't getting scammed. Crypto (Bitcoin): 10/10. Instant. Not much to say, Bitcoin is perfect. Gold & Silver: 7 or 8/10. Same as fiat. With coins it would be easier maybe. Someone comes to a random person with a gold or silver nugget they might not immediatly recognize what metal that is, mistake silver for iron or palladium :D So maybe 7. 12. Secure Government Fiats (Majors): 5/10. Hard to score this. If you got cash in your pocket it's as secure as you make it. If it's in a bank it's secure enough, but far inferior as with cryptocurrencies. Crypto (Bitcoin): 9/10. I'm not going to give a 10, because the whole network can be crashed and everything lost. There is no central authority making backups of the blockchain :) Other than that it's as secure as can be. Gold & Silver: 5/10. Your gold nugget can be stolen easilly. If it's in a bank vault it can't. Depends on you to protect it. 13. Cheap, quick, and easy to use. Government Fiats (Majors): 9/10. Electronic or physical payments are cheap and rapid. Crypto (Bitcoin): 0 to 10 /10. Depends on the tech. Right now... If a few people start using Bitcoin fees go up to $50/tx and take forever... If half the planet started using it fees would probably be in the millions and tx times would be what? years? Absolutely ridiculous. Tech itself is limited. Bitcoin just cannot be used. Gold & Silver: 8/10. There might be some weighting required. With electronic gold or even coins, it's pretty fast & simple. Conclusion: Countries fiat is usuable, barely. It's just not good enough. We have to get rid of this degen money printing, there is a little too much inflation but that's not that bad. It could be used as is, as long as the central banks are limited. That's the main issue. Central bank is doing too much, and in particular too much bad things. They have to stop trying to FORCE the economy to go up. Free to operate Businesses, Innovators, Financeers, and Global Trade are what makes an economy go up / create wealth not some out of touch bureaucrat making idiotic decisions to try and FORCE innovations somehow sdknjfsdfksdhjfsdkhj - having a stroke - IDIOTS. It's unbelievable how stupid they are. I just am amazed. Did I land on planet of the apes? F sake. Satoshi got desperate. There is reason to be. If the central authorities were doing the job right, then current fiat currencies are actually not that bad. Of course, they can be improved on certain aspects. There is room for innovations to make it better. One of Bitcoin bears main argument is it is no fundamental value, it is made out of thin air. But it is a wrong argument. It has 0 relevance if a currency has value or not. It's purpose is not to hold value but to allow transactions (paul has rice and wants oranges peter has oranges but wants phones...). Bitcoin is near perfect or even perfect in terms of security divisibility durability transportability... Bitcoin scores very high on some aspects, and terribly on other ones. You do not make an average score and go "oh that's good enough". It absolutely HAS to keep a minimum score on all aspects. It's like it cures your broken finger by chopping your whole arm off. It's just ridiculous XD "The more people know about Bitcoin the less bullish they are on it". Yup. Precious metals are ok but we can do better. Going to be very complicated to have elasticity. Does an international government control the supply? Each country with gold mines? Doesn't seem viable to me. Best bet is a central bank fiat/electronic currency with rules that make sense.
Education
by MrRenev
5
XRP vs. USD counter trend trade, via 1-hour chartPrice broke through previous demand, pushing it down towards the 0.30580 support line, retested and broke lower towards a key level of support of 0.29030. Price rejected that support level, pushed up and bounced off previous resistance of 0.30580. Price rejected support for the second time creating a double bottom and looks like it wants to break above previous structure resistance. Let's see if it can go back into that area of supply.
BITFINEX:XRPUSDLong
by CDaley91
MURK is the favorite altcoin of the decoupling concept.In use, there are a lot of good reasons to want altcoins to maintain very separate valuations from Bitcoin. During the latest upswing from the 5,200-5,300 range to 5,500 LTC showed persistent fiat price stability, shedding BTC value in concert with that coin’s increase, hovering at around 77-80USD. But this lever of price stability seems more a pairing with murk than it does with reality. The only way to know for sure is if LTC and others will retain their fiat values while the price of BTC decreases while LTC and others increase in BTC value, maintaining fiat stability. Yet BTC price volatility and those surges which characterize the market seem to be an essential part of the dynamic which has attracted investors and increased the market cap, imparting the well-known capacity for wealth creation to all crypto assets. And, that’s why this mechanism is murky, because decoupling itself isn’t so much a mechanism as it is a concept, one around which trading behavior might rally while FUD manifests speculation as to the direction BTC will take if we are indeed at the end of the bearish tail resulting from the 2017 plunge, or too soon in estimates of a market moving on to BTC trending. But are you willing to take that risk; to watch BTC plunge while holding on to altcoins which have demonstrated fiat stickiness on BTC’s upswing in the hope of seeing the same, in reverse, should BTC do what many believe it will and implode, either bouncing back from a retest of supports or altogether finding a new floor beneath them? So, where does altcoin stickiness to fiat currencies come from other than the growth in number and robust trading of pairings? Is it a good thing, or a bad thing; a necessary thing, or something we can ignore? And however ‘stickiness’ is accomplished, if it can or should be, will maintaining altcoin valuation stability during BTC swings serve a purpose which runs contrary to the expectations believers have for cryptocurrency, in general, or is the ability to spend with some modicum of stability anytime and the implied market stability this represents more important to the continued health of exchanges overall? As questions go, these are the tip of the iceberg, and it’s doubtful the iceberg will melt all too soon. If market cap growth is to keep pace as the market matures, a new class of investors will likely look to spending stability in at least several assets before taking the plunge. It’s that, or crypto players who collate real world assets with crypto assets, like real estate, will change the market and take their creation into a retirement where they don’t have to look at the screen coaching along a menagerie of trading bots. If it really were about redistribution of and access to wealth, however, that may be the very kind of decoupling we’ve been looking for crypto to create all along.
by latticephreak
Bitcoin is going to "0"I've shorted my first bitcoin after a year of watching and waiting for the bear market to begin. When it broke down from 6k i figure I take out my life saving to short it on its way to zero because everyone will want to buy while accumulators over last year will be trying to get out of their underwater postion. Here I am shorting the 3550 level. Tone Vays said the deadcat bounce was over and that bitcoin will go to sub 3k now. Tyler believe bitcoin will go to $900 but I say "0". Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme based on zero fundamentals and it has no principle for being sound money. I have decided to close my SPX short and short BTC at 1.5x. Bitcoin will never actually overcome central banking because central banks have more money and people trust in their dollar that is backed by the faith of the US government and its people. BTC is backed by nothing and fully autonomous w/ market manipulators from CME shorting it lower and lower. Craig Wright also claims that Lightning Network is a ploy by Blockstream to keep the network cost of mining high. Bitcoin cant scale to the world. If bitcoin fails every other crypto will fall and the only thing thatll be left standing is ripple. Thats only because ripple isnt a scam like bitcoin. Well good luck my fellow bear, I also plan on longing the dollar with my profits because Trump is going to back the US. Dollar w/ gold.
BNC:BLXShort
by nujabes_
1
SPX Two phases of resistance with increment of support line. SPX hits rock bottom for Q4 2018 witnessing radical volumes of short selling before end 2018. Due to uncertainty of the market after SPX hits 2680 (support line), US stock markets has turn into aggressive volatile waves. As shown on picture above, the upside down chart indicated two resistance lines created from the downfall. first resistance line at 2800 was tested two times after SPX try to bounce back from the -6%~ bearish trend. Similar to 2nd resistance line at 2741, the first bounce breakout was succeed to go through however was declined right after the wave hits 1st resistance. According to TA at 1-4H timeframe, currently SPX is on favors to be bullish. If it go through 2741 (which will be likely). So it can be conclude that 2741 will be a new support line for this week. RSI indicated a 50:50 ratio conditions. While ICloud favors on bearish no signal for bullish. MACD shown a bullish signal for 1-4H, while 1-45 Minutes indicated vice versa. For daily trader the range for daily scalping within 1-45 minutes timeframe is 2741 (Max resistance) to 2690 (Min Support). Another view on diagonal support line was formed to conclude an EW possibilities; Grey EW is a bullish view with condition that the wave didn't under vine the diagonal support line. if it does a bearish red EW will likely to appear. Previous close market under seen unfavorable long percentage increased around +0.36% with oil only +0.34%. Will SPX rise on top of bullish perception?. Or undergo consolidation phase with bear?.
SP:SPX
by Gulpz
The U.S. Dollar and The "Desperate Hand" PatternDXY, or the dollar index, has been in a downtrend since the very beginning. This is part of the reason why I'm invested in crypto, and why I think deflationary currencies will make a significant attempt to overtake inflationary currencies like the U.S. Dollar. I think it's always good to look at where the supply zone was when an asset first comes on the market, as that often determines whether something is long term bearish, or long term bullish. In this case, the dollar index has a downward sloping supply zone (between the blue and orange diagonal lines). The blue line is where it was initially sold back in 1968, and has continuously failed to sustain above it. The people who stayed in Gold were smart. We have also recently formed a lower low, and a downtrend channel that has been acting as a new support (this is where the DXY spends most of its time these days, except when it ventures briefly up to the supply zone). I also want to take this time to explain a pattern that I've found pretty often in observing markets. I call it the "desperate hand," since it resembles a hand reaching desperately for help as it falls into a bottomless pit. It is a powerful bearish reversal pattern that occurs when there is a large triple top or head and shoulders, followed by a drop below recent support. There is then a significant rebound that fails to get above that support, before falling down often at least twice as hard as the previous drop. The bottom is usually twice the distance of the neckline or "wrist" to the top. You can see that it happened to the DXY on its previous top in 2001 as well. I find that this pattern plays out the majority of the time (not 100%, but it's a VERY reliable indicator). I outlined it on this chart for fun. Anyway, this is not a recommendation to buy or sell. I am not a professional financial advisor. This is just an observation I've made, and I also just wanted to share this pattern. Maybe other people have a different name for it.
INDEX:DXYShort
by VictorCobra