Category Archives: Daily Top Ten

Topley’s Top 10 – December 06, 2022

1. Tech Leader Cloud Computing -50% YTD

WCLD Cloud Computing ETF

https://www.wisdomtree.com/investments/etfs/megatrends/wcld


2. Amazon Chart 50day thru 200day to Downside on Weekly Chart

AMZN bearish technical signal


3. FSLR +176% Since Signing of Inflation Reduction Act

First Solar Spike

www.stockcharts.com


4. Credit Suisse Stock Makes New Lows as Saudi’s Invest

Dec 4 (Reuters) – Investors including Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and a U.S. private-equity firm run by a former Barclays CEO have shown interest in investing $1 billion or more in Credit Suisse’s (CSGN.S) new investment banking unit, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/credit-suisses-investment-bank-draws-interest-saudi-crown-prince-wsj-2022-12-05/#:~:text=Dec%204%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20Investors,Street%20Journal%20reported%20on%20Sunday.

Chart CS New Lows

Meanwhile Warren Buffett Invests in Jefferies ….2 Year Chart JEF +55% vs. CS -75%

www.yahoofinance.com


5. PKW Buyback ETF Another Chart Holding Above 200 Week Moving Average

Stocks with highest buybacks holding key technical level

www.stockcharts.com


6. The Average Price of a Used Tesla is Plummeting …-15% Since August

@Charlie Bilello The average price of a used Tesla is down nearly 15% over the last 90 days, $11.5k lower than the peak in July.

https://compoundadvisors.com/blog


7. Details on Americans Excess Savings

Jim Reid Deutsche Bank One of the reasons we’ve felt confident that the US economy wouldn’t slip into recession in 2022 and early 2023, even though we’ve been convinced that it will by the end of 2023, is the huge pool of excess savings and when they’ll be eroded.

Today’s CoTD comes from Matt Luzzetti’s 2023 Outlook for the US economy here. The first chart shows the consumer remains supported by a historically enormous $1.2trn stock of excess savings alongside the still strong labour market. However in our economists’ base case, two-thirds of that stock will be eroded by the middle of next year. If we’re correct about a recession starting in Q3, then the entire stock will be depleted by the end of that quarter.

As the second chart shows, most of the excess savings is concentrated in the top quartile even if this is the group seeing the largest erosion from the peak. However more importantly there is likely to be more erosion of the excess savings of the lower income households in 2023. They have the higher propensity to spend so will be less able to boost the economy over the next 12 months.

Larry Summers put it neatly in a Bloomberg TV interview over the weekend suggesting that, “At a certain point, consumers run out of their savings and then you have a Wile E. Coyote kind of moment”.


8. Changes in Road Deaths Since 1994

https://ritholtz.com/


9. Startup backed by Tesla investor promises $300,000 flying car by 2025: ‘This is not more complicated than a Toyota Corolla’

Tom Huddleston Jr. CNBC

Alef Aeronautics wants to start delivering its $300,000 Model A flying car to customers by 2025.

Source: Alef Aeronautics

The promise of a future filled with flying cars is nothing new. For decades, futurists have touted the dream of your car lifting off and soaring above a traffic jam.

So the most interesting part of a recent prototype announcement from Santa Clara, California-based Alef Aeronautics may not be the car itself, which Alef says will be able to take off into the air vertically and fly like a helicopter up to 110 miles on a single charge.

It’s the timing: The company says it plans to begin delivering the vehicles to customers by the end of 2025.

Alef’s Model A will cost $300,000 and presales are currently open, with interested customers able to pay just a $150 deposit to get on the waiting list, or $1,500 for a “priority” spot on the list. Alef says the company has been test-driving and flying its prototype since 2019, and the version it plans to deliver to customers will also have a driving range of 200 miles.

Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny tells CNBC Make It that the car is mostly intended to stay on roads, ideally only traveling through the air for short heights and distances to avoid specific obstacles. He refers to those moments as “hop” scenarios, “where the customer mainly uses the vehicle as a car, and only ‘hop’ over the obstacles when needed.”

In a statement in October, Dukhovny referenced “road conditions, weather and infrastructure” as potential reasons to briefly take flight.

It’s a bold concept. But for a flying car to actually appear on highways anytime soon, a lot needs to happen, experts say.


A challenging road to legality and mass production

The car’s design includes a carbon-fiber body with an open, mesh-like top that houses four propellers on each side. Once the car takes off vertically, the entire vehicle turns on its side, with the two-seat cockpit swiveling as well, allowing the propellers to steer it like an oversized flying drone.

As far as driving the vehicle, Alef says it is designed to adhere to automotive laws and regulations, making it “road legal,” according to the company.

Alef even has the backing of Tim Draper, a high-profile venture capitalist who was an early investor in both Tesla and SpaceX. His namesake Draper Associates Fund V invested $3 million of seed money in Alef in October.

Source: Alef Aeronautics

But Mike Ramsey, an auto and smart mobility analyst at Gartner, says Alef’s plans are “neat” — but contends that the company has “a tough road” ahead.

Mass production is a challenge for any car startup, and it’s often hard to get regulatory approvals to legally drive on public roads, much less fly over them, Ramsey says.

Ramsey notes that the Federal Aviation Administration has provided updated guidance on the requirements needed for ground vehicles to be legally allowed to take off and fly in public airspace. The FAA even reportedly gave another flying car concept, Samson Sky’s Switchblade, the go-ahead for flight testing in July.

But Ramsey is adamant that, even with more clarity from the FAA and other regulators, companies looking to get their flying car concepts certified still face a “major challenge.”

“The safety requirements that every [road] vehicle has to have, how you can make that work alongside the requirements you would need to make a flying vehicle legal would be pretty substantial,” Ramsey says.

Alef hopes to speed up its regulatory process by first seeking air certification outside of the U.S., specifically in Asia and Europe, Dukhovny says: ”[That] will not only help us build a safety record, but also will allow us to gather enough data to help with FAA certification process in the U.S.”

Dukhovny also plans to initially have the Model A certified as a Low Speed Vehicle (LSV), which would mean the car couldn’t exceed roughly 25 miles per hour on public roads. Alef would later seek full automotive certification, he adds.


‘That would be an incredible accomplishment’

The Model A isn’t Alef’s only bold plan: Dukhovny has also publicly announced his intention to build a cheaper version, called the Model Z, that sells for just $35,000 by 2030.

In October, Dukhovny told Reuters that the proposed Model Z would be “not more complicated than a Toyota Corolla,” and should therefore have a similar price range.

But it’s “not easy” to build a mass-produced vehicle — like the Corolla — much less turn one into a legal aircraft, Ramsey says.

“I would personally be very surprised if we have a flying vehicle like that ready for production in the next two years,” he adds. “That would be an incredible accomplishment.”

Not everyone agrees. Hugh Martin, CEO of transportation logistics startup Lacuna Technologies, told CNBC last year that he could envision commercially available flying cars as soon as 2024.

Major companies racing to be the first to put a flying car on the market include Fiat Chrysler and China’s Xpeng. Hyundai and Uber have been working on a flying taxi concept since 2020, and Hyundai subsidiary Supernal has announced plans to to launch a flying pod commercially by 2028.

But even if the cars are ready by then, regulatory approval could be a much lengthier process.

“Just the regulatory challenges are going to be pretty substantial,” Ramsey says.

Want to earn more and work less? Register for the free CNBC Make It: Your Money virtual event on Dec. 13 at 12 p.m. ET to learn from money masters how you can increase your earning power.

Sign up now: Get smarter about your money and career with our weekly newsletter

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/04/alef-aeronautics-startup-backed-by-tesla-investor-flying-car-by-2025.html


10. Why Emotional Intelligence Is in Decline

Less in-person interaction, lower societal empathy, and more. Madeleine A. Fugère Ph.D.

KEY POINTS

  • Emotional intelligence consists of four factors: well-being, self-control, emotionality, and sociability.
  • The cross-temporal meta-analysis included 70 studies with nearly 17,000 participants.
  • Three facets of emotional intelligence declined over time: well-being, self-control, and emotionality.
  • Access to technology was associated with decreased well-being and self-control.

New research appearing in the latest issue of the Journal of Personality by Khan and colleagues presents a meta-analysis showing declining levels of emotional intelligence in Western college-student samples in studies that were completed between 2001 and 2019.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is a complex construct consisting of four factors: well-being, self-control, emotionality, and sociability. The factor of well-being encompasses one’s positive self-evaluations, as well as feelings of happiness and optimism. The factor of self-control includes the ability to regulate one’s feelings, including emotions, stress, and impulses. The factor of emotionality involves relationship skills such as one’s ability to accurately perceive one’s own as well as others’ feelings and one’s capacity to experience empathy. The factor of sociability includes one’s ability to communicate effectively, exert influence over others, and build social networks (Khan et al., 2021).

The Current Research

The lead author of the present study searched for previous research using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, which was conducted between 2001 and 2019. The researchers also limited inclusion in the meta-analysis to those studies involving college student samples from the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. The present research included 70 studies with nearly 17,000 participants. The researchers then conducted a “cross-temporal meta-analysis” to examine changes in emotional intelligence over time, controlling for the age of the cohorts. They sought to determine “whether societal-level changes have coincided with changes in trait EI [emotional intelligence] in young adults.”

The Findings

The researchers found (when controlling for gender as well as the country where the study was conducted) that time was significantly negatively associated with three facets of emotional intelligence: well-being, self-control, and emotionality. Furthermore, the declines in emotional intelligence were “stronger as the proportion of females in the sample decrease[d].” The authors also conducted supplementary analyses showing that access to technology in each of the countries was “associated with lower levels of well-being and self-control.”

The Implications

The authors speculate that the rapid rise in young adults’ use of social media might be responsible for some of the declines in emotional intelligence. “In-person social interaction provides greater opportunity for emotional closeness and bonding compared to online communication, which is problematic if individuals are replacing in-person social interactions with online communication.” Changes in society over the past two decades may also be responsible for “generational decreases in empathy and increases in depression and anxiety symptoms” as well as “increases in mood disorders, suicide ideation, and suicide attempts.”

Although the design of the current study does not permit drawing causal conclusions, the authors speculate that social media increasingly “replaces in-person communication resulting in increasing loneliness… [and] facilitates social comparisons and peer envy.” The researchers propose that other factors such as academic stress or family instability may also drive these declines in emotional intelligence. “Pinpointing the causes behind declining levels of well-being, self-control, and emotionality is particularly important for the prevention of mental health issues.” The authors also note the possibility that “well-being may have declined over time as a consequence of declines in other facets of trait EI (e.g., self-control and emotionality).”

The Limitations and Future Directions

One limitation of the current project: Because many individual papers did not report the ethnic background of their participants, the current researchers were unable to explore ethnic background as a potential moderator of emotional intelligence. To address declining emotional intelligence, the researchers recommend implementing interventions that can improve trait emotional intelligence over the long term, noting that “these interventions were also successful in improving participants’ social relationships and employability.” The authors hope that their analysis “stimulates further research into investigating the causes of these alarming societal trends.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dating-and-mating/202111/why-emotional-intelligence-is-in-decline

Topley’s Top 10 – December 05, 2022

1. History of Back to Back 5% Plus S&P Months

@RyanDetrick  Carson Research

Here’s another bullish takeaway from the recent strength. S&P 500 >5% back-to-back months. This type of persistent strength isn’t the sign of a bear market rally, but likely the start of a new bull. Previous 13 times it happened? Higher yr later every time and up 22.2% on avg.


2. VIX Volatility Index About to Break Thru August Lows

www.stockcharts.com


3. Global Bonds Up Almost 5% in One Month

JP Morgan Private Bank GLOBAL BONDS ENJOYED THEIR BEST MONTH OF PERFORMANCE SINCE THE GFC


4. Most Layoffs Coming From Tech

Liz Ann Sonders Schwab Perhaps no surprise but a parabolic spike in job cut announcements in tech industry (update thru November)  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizannsonders/


5. Bitcoin as Digital Gold?  2022 GLD (gold) -2.3% vs. BITO (Bitcoin) -63%

www.yahoofinance.com


6. Top Buyers of Russian Oil August 2022

Barrons The Murky Pricing Math Behind Europe’s New Oil Sanctions


By 

Avi Salzman

https://www.barrons.com/articles/europe-russia-oil-price-sanctions-51670034208?mod=past_editions&tesla=y


7.Home Prices Down But Still Sky-High

Bespoke Investment Group September numbers for home prices across the country were released by S&P CoreLogic Case Shiller this morning.  Below is a look at how much home prices are up since February 2020 just before COVID hit.  The National index is up 41%, while Tampa, Phoenix, and Miami are all up 63% or more.  At the lower end of the gains are Washington DC, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Chicago with price increases between 27% and 31%.7. Home Prices Down But Still Sky-High

https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/home-prices-down-but-still-sky-high

Blackstone Puts Up Gate on Giant Real Estate Fund

 Blackstone’s $69 Billion Real Estate Fund Hits Redemption Limit

  • Investment firm will restrict repurchase requests in December
  • Real estate fund has breached quarterly repurchase limits

Sridhar Natarajan and Dawn Lim

Blackstone Inc.’s $69 billion real estate fund for wealthy individuals said it will limit redemption requests, one of the most dramatic signs of a pullback at a top profit driver for the firm and a chilling indicator for the property industry.

Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. has been facing withdrawal requests exceeding its quarterly limit, a major test for the one of the private equity firm’s most ambitious efforts to reach individual investors. The news, in a letter Thursday, sent Blackstone stock falling as much as 10%, the biggest drop since March. 

“Our business is built on performance, not fund flows, and performance is rock solid,” a Blackstone spokesperson said, adding that BREIT’s concentration in rental housing and logistics in the Sun Belt leaves it well positioned going forward. This year, the fund has piled into more than $20 billion worth of swaps contracts through November to counteract rising rates.

The fund became a behemoth in the real estate industry since its start in 2017, snapping up apartments, suburban homes and dorms and growing rapidly in an era of ultra-low interest rates as investors chased yield. Now, soaring borrowing costs and a cooling economy are rapidly changing the landscape for the fund, causing BREIT to caution that it could limit or suspend repurchase requests going forward. 

Blackstone’s top executives have bet big on the fund. Bloomberg reported last month that President Jon Gray had put $100 million more of his own money in BREIT since July, as had Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman, a person familiar with the matter said at the time.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-01/blackstone-real-estate-fund-tops-limit-for-redemption-requests?sref=GGda9y2L


8.Profit Margin Compression at S&P Retailers

Jack Ablin Cresset Capital Many retailers are offering steep discounts, even in the face of higher labor costs, to outrun the recession. The average discount for Black Friday deals this year was 30 per cent, according to The New York Times. Another challenge is that middle-class consumers are expected to spend 15 per cent more on “experiences,” such as travel, concerts and sporting events, this year compared to last year, according to a recent New York Times report. Some shoppers are already cutting back on discretionary purchases. Bottom line: We expect a strong Christmas selling season, but it will be at the expense of profit margins.

https://cressetcapital.com/post/retailers-race-against-recession/


9.Tesla Tractor Trailers Hit the Road

Morning Brew Blog

TRANSPORATION

Beep beep, your Tesla Semi is finally here

Francis Scialabba

Three years behind schedule, Tesla Semis will finally join their diesel-guzzling pals in boxing you in on the interstate. Last night, the automaker delivered its first electric semitrucks, which are expected to be more powerful and able to travel further than any EV currently whizzing down I-80.

The first company to get the trucks will be Pepsi, which was in the long haul for the long hauls. It ordered 100 trucks when they were first announced in 2017.

The industry is pumped for the Tesla Semi

Right now, electric trucks are limited by their range: Renault’s EV semi, for example, can only travel ~125 miles on a single charge. These electric trucks are used only for local and regional trips so they can charge at factories and distribution centers overnight.

But Elon Musk promised that his truck could drive 500 miles on a single charge, a feat that would change the game for adoption of heavy-duty EVs.

However, there are more speed bumps for EV semis than even an 18-wheeler can clear:

  1. Batteries in these trucks are extremely difficult and expensive to produce—especially right now as lithium, the main component of an EV battery, and other crucial minerals are in short supply.
  2. The amount of electricity required to power EV trucks is staggering. Seriously—the projected power needed to convert a single gas station into a charging station to support smaller EVs and semis by 2035 would be the amount a small town needs, according to a study from National Grid.

Unlike personal EVs, which have taken off in recent years, EV semitrucks are still on training wheels. If the Tesla Semi succeeds, it could be a big win for 1) the young commercial EV industry and 2) Tesla, which needs a boost after its stock plunged more than 50% this year and its CEO Musk got distracted fighting with Stephen King on Twitter.—MM

         

https://www.morningbrew.com/daily


10. Boldly Optimistic and Ruthlessly Pragmatic

It doesn’t matter who you are, the facts are the same. Marcus Aurelius was Emperor. Epictetus was a slave. Two different fates, but the same reality. Most of life, most situations are out of our control. All we can do is respond to them well. All we can do is endure them.

In December 1950, the United States was deep into the war in Korea. It seemed likely that the conflict would spiral out of control. What would happen next? What could one do? Was it hopeless? Whose fault was it? As Secretary of State, Dean Aiken struggled under this burden. He got a letter from his old friend, the foreign policy visionary George Keenan. It’s advice that bucks you up whether you’re fighting for the future of the free world, or just trying to make it through high school. And here it is:

“In international as in private life, what counts most is not what happens to someone, but how he bears what happens to him. For this reason, almost everything depends from here on out on the manner in which we Americans bear what is unquestionably a major failure and disaster to our national fortunes. If we accept it with candor, with dignity with the resolve to absorb its lessons and make it good by redoubled and determined effort, starting all over again, if necessary, along the pattern of Pearl Harbor, we need lose neither our self confidence nor our allies, nor our powers for bargaining. But if we try to conceal from our own people, or from our allies, the full measure of our misfortune, or permit ourselves to seek relief in any reactions of bluster or petulance or hysteria, we can easily find this crisis resolving itself into an irreparable deterioration of our world position, and of our confidence in ourselves.”

We’ve talked before about this kind of paradox in stoicism. The stoics were boldly optimistic and ruthlessly pragmatic. They always believed that they could endure the worst circumstances and they accepted the brutal facts of those circumstances. They saw the unquestionable major disaster and the unprecedented major opportunity.

As Ryan Holiday writes in Lives of the Stoics (which you can pick up at The Daily Stoic Store), Xeno loses his entire fortune in a shipwreck. But by bearing this with grace and fortitude, he was able to discover a philosophy that changed the world. Marcus was the leader of Rome through a series of crises that matched Truman’s: a war and a 15-year pandemic. Cato faced a republic on the brink of collapse. SenecaMusonius Rufus, Agrippinus, Rutilius, and Helvidius, all were exiled.

These were difficult moments, but they bore them well with competence, dignity, candor, most of all unflappable perseverance. They might have temporarily bemoaned it, but they knew, as Epictetus knew, that becoming an Olympic class athlete takes sweat. So they stuck to it, just as you must.

https://dailystoic.com

Topley’s Top 10 – December 02, 2022

1. S&P Closes Above 200day Moving Average


2. History of S&P Below 200day for 6 Months

From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading Looking at the previous 13 times (since ’50) it was beneath the 200dma for 6 mos or more and closed above showed only once did it move back to new lowsUp avg 18.8% yr later and higher 12/13 times, Carson notes.


3. Another Large U.S. Arms Sale this Week $323M to Finland…Defense ETF New Highs

ITA-Aerospace and Defense ETF about to make new highs

www.stockcharts.com


4. International Outperformance EFA Developed International +13.2% vs. S&P +5% November

www.yahoofinance.com


5. MSCI China +25% November

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/MCHI:NASDAQ?  sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6zZi74tj7AhWJpXIEHVFsAgQQ3ecFegQIHBAg


6. Tesla Traded Down to 200 Week Moving Average

Tesla after 3 lower tops..almost hits 200week on long-term chart

www.stockcharts.com


7. Bitcoin Returns After Rolling One Month -20%

Not sure if this matters but here is the history

https://www.nasdaq.com/solutions/nasdaq-dorsey-wright


8. China Facing 11.58m College Grads this Year Looking for Jobs

My thought 18% Youth Unemployment Historically Equals Social Unrest

Bloomberg China’s Record Graduates to Pressure Youth Jobs Market in 2023

  • A record 11.58 million students will graduate next year: Gov
  • Youth unemployment rate hit all-time high this year on Covid

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-16/china-s-record-graduates-to-pressure-youth-jobs-market-in-2023?sref=GGda9y2L


9. Number Of Handgun Owners Carrying Daily Nearly Doubles In US

ZEROHEDGE BLOG BY TYLER DURDEN  A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health revealed the number of law-abiding Americans carrying a loaded handgun daily nearly doubled between 2015-19.

The study titled “Trend in Loaded Handgun Carrying Among Adult Handgun Owners in the United States, 2015‒2019” found the number of law-abiding US adults carrying handguns nearly doubled from 9 million in 2015 to 16 million in 2019.

“Proportionally fewer handgun owners carried handguns in states where issuing authorities had substantial discretion in granting permits,” the study’s authors said.

The authors claimed that very “little was known about the frequency and features of firearm carrying among adult handgun owners in the United States before this study. In fact, over the past 30 years, only a few peer-reviewed national surveys, conducted in 1994,1995, 1996, and 2015, have provided even the most basic information about firearm carrying frequency.”

Research firm Ipsos conducted the national survey between July 2019 and August 2019. Respondents were from firearm-owning households drawn from Ipsos’s Knowledge Panel, an online sampling pool of approximately 55,000 adults.

There was no explanation by the study’s authors for the rapid increase in daily handgun-carrying adults. But during the period, social unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore City, Maryland, as well as surging violent crime across certain metro areas, could be the reason behind the trend.

After all, an overwhelming number of respondents said they were carrying handguns for “personal protection.”

“And all of these increases happened before the Covid lockdowns and the “Summer of Love” where many US cities experienced massive rioting, violence and staggering increases in crime,” firearms blog Bearing Arms said. Much of this unleashed a tidal wave of law-abiding citizens panic buying guns, even to this day, for personal protection.

And then there’s this summer’s US Supreme Court’s NYSRPA v. Bruen ruling affirmed the right-to-carry applies outside the home, which forces states to stop arbitrarily denying carry permits to applicants who didn’t meet specific requirements. This ruling has allowed millions of gun owners to conceal carry if they take a two-day class and pass a background check.

Suppose the authors were to update the study for the pandemic years and the Bruen ruling. In that case, we believe the number of Americans packing heat has dramatically increased as the country is plagued with violent crime in progressively run cities.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/number-handgun-owners-carrying-daily-nearly-doubles-us


10. 10 things crypto people said at Thanksgiving this year

This article was written by Joe Weisenthal. It appeared first on the Bloomberg Terminal.

Well this is awkward for you. As Bloomberg’s Claire Ballentine notes, if you were preaching the gospel of crypto to your family at Thanksgiving last year, then this year you had a lot of explaining to do. Here are 10 things I’ve written that could have been said around the dinner table this year, that if nothing else, could salvage a few scraps of reputation and dignity.

1. “As bad as it seems right now, trust me, Mt. Gox was worse.” It doesn’t even matter that you weren’t around or even aware of crypto when that infamous exchange went down in early 2014. Nobody can really disprove the statement. And it gives you credibility about having a long-term perspective. You know the ups and downs.

2. “The collapse of FTX just validates… crypto.” This is really the key one that you have to keep arguing over and over again — that FTX and these other entities that went down this year were just traditional banks that had bastardized the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto. There was nothing “crypto” about them and it’s good that they’re gone. Next cycle, we need to move more and more activity on chain (just don’t bring up Luna!).

3. “Real crypto is working just fine.” Point to the various decentralized exchanges (like Uniswap) or lending platforms (like AAVE) that have continued to operate, without seizing user money. This is the future! And it works today. (Again, don’t bring up Luna.)

4. “Oh you want to mock crypto? I guess you’ve never had to make a payment in a developing market.” If the arguments about “real” crypto aren’t working, then you have to establish your moral superiority over your relatives. Talk about how privileged everyone else at the dinner table is for living in a country with a functioning banking and payment system. (Feel free to say this, even if you yourself have no personal experience with making payments in a developing market either.)

5. “Crypto already has numerous use cases, like stablecoins.” If anyone asks what crypto is, you know, used for (and someone will!) point out how there’s over $100 billion held in stablecoins on Ethereum alone, and how this is a better way of making payments than traditional apps. And if you want to appeal to the patriotic instincts of anyone at the table, argue that this crypto is covertly expanding global dollar supremacy by making USD holdable by anyone with a smartphone anywhere in the world.

There are some other things you can point to as “use cases” as well. Show how easy it is to post your Ethereum as collateral to get stablecoins. Ask them if they can do that with their Tesla shares on Robinhood. They can’t. Then sell some coins with a few clicks and ask them if they can do that on Robinhood. Oh wait, they can’t do that either because the market is closed on Thanksgiving. Checkmate!

6. “Of course crashes happen. But outside of just trading, crypto is changing culture and art.” This is where you bring in the influence of NFTs on art and music. Talk about how you’re all about supporting creators and how traditional models hurt artists and fans. Maybe say something about the Taylor Swift/Ticketmaster fiasco as evidence of the old business models being broken. How do NFTs solve the Taylor Swift problem? Unclear, but that’s for another conversation.

Of course, be careful. One piece of advice: Maybe acknowledge that the apes look dumb, just as a way to shore up your credibility on this point. If anyone does bring up the apes, point to some cool on-chain generative art or something like that.

7. “Crypto is going to change gaming.” This is the corollary to the art discussion. Point to the kids in the family that have left the dinner table to start playing video games. Gesture towards them and talk about how that generation is digital first, and will want to actually be able to own the items that they play with online. Owning their characters and so forth. Moving them from game to game. Acknowledge that the first generation of crypto games were not that fun, but that better gameplay is coming soon.

8. “Bubbles are a crucial part of the innovation process and often leave behind productive infrastructure in their wake.” This is tricky, but sophisticated. Point to the railroads that were left behind after the railway bubble in the 1800s. Point to the telecom infrastructure that was built amid the dotcom boom.

What’s the equivalent for crypto? Well there’s nothing physical you can point to that’s the equivalent of railroads or bandwidth. So your best shot is to talk about the accumulated knowledge gains that have been made in cryptography and computer science, as a result of all this speculation. Talk about zero-knowledge proofs, and how this privacy tech will have a profound, positive impact on how we use the Internet. Argue that any financial institutions, even TradFi ones, will benefit from having to cryptographically prove their solvency at all times.

You can even talk about Automated Market Makers, and how if you stipulate that right now they’re just being used for the trading of magic beans, that one day they can be used to trade equities or currencies without the need for a middleman. The code that’s been built up to support crypto trading is the infrastructure that will power a future golden age of financial markets.

9. We needed a crash to weed out unhealthy speculators.” Maybe the line about bubbles being good and necessary is unconvincing. So instead talk about how crashes are good and necessary. Crypto is a long game, and it’s good for the ecosystem that the newbs and short-term pump and dumpers are out of the game. Now it’s time to build! And since you’re still here, arguing with family at Thanksgiving, then obviously you weren’t just in it for the quick buck. You’re one of the good ones, and in it for the long haul.

10. “It’s a mere 485 days until Bitcoin’s next halving!” It can’t possibly be priced in yet.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/10-things-people-said-at-thanksgiving-this-year/?utm_source=Email&utm_campaign=628913&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_content=CryptoNewsletterDec&tactic=628913&pchash=817213826%3A125698791

Topley’s Top 10 – December 01, 2022

1. Proxy for Risk…See If Softbank Breaks to New Lows

www.stockcharts.com


2. Bear Market?…Nasdaq NDAQ Approaching New Highs

www.stockcharts.com


3. Video Game Sales First Down Revenue Year in a Decade

NERD ETF $40 to $14

HERO ETF Global X Video Games and Esports $26 to $18

www.stockcharts.com


4. Vanguard Developed International ex-U.S. Closes Above 200day Moving Average


5. Tesla Price to Sales 23x to 8x

Macro Trends-Tesla price to sales chart.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/price-sales


6. Tech Jobs on Ziprecruiter Went Up 87% in One Year…..Now Falling

Marketwatch Zoe Han

The number of job postings for jobs in the technology sector on ZipRecruiter peaked in May with more than 1.9 million jobs, up 87% from February 2020 just before the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic.  But hiring started declining in June around the same time as the Fed’s first 75 basis point hike (one basis point is equal to one hundredth of a percentage point, or 1% of 1%). In October, the number of job postings for tech jobs fell to 1.3 million.

Employers are seeking to fill fewer entry-level tech roles. On Nov. 15, only 2.7% of the active job postings for data engineers on ZipRecruiter were looking for “junior,” “entry-level” or “level I” candidates. Demand was even lower for enterprise resource development engineers (1.6%), software developers (1.2%), software engineers (0.8%) and systems engineers (1.8%). Instead, a large share of active job postings across those roles were seeking “mid-level” or “level II” candidates — 71% of the software-developer job postings and 48.6% of software engineers.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tech-hiring-is-slowing-down-this-chart-explains-how-and-why-11669057738?mod=home-page


7. $8 Trillion…1/2 of Chinese GDP Collateralized by Land Values

The property downturn is a particular problem for China as local government debt – of which there is an estimated $8 trillion of outstanding, half of China’s GDP – is often collateralized by land values. Falling land values increase the chance of collateral calls, leading to the distressed sale of other assets, adding to deflationary dynamic.

China saw the largest rise in private debt since 2010 of any country in the world, with the private-debt-to-GDP ratio rising a dizzying 90 percentage points.

That has led to China’s debt service ratio, the ratio of its debt service repayments to private disposable income, to rise above 20%.

The BIS notes that DSRs of 20%-25% have preceded financial crises in other countries. Hong Kong’s DSR is even worse at over 30%.

One increasingly likely lever China will pull (and has been pulling) to ease the debt problem is allowing the yuan to weaken, and perhaps eventually dropping the fixed-rate exchange system altogether. Property easing measures and an eventual exit from Covid restrictions will help, but the debt problem is not going away.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/end-zero-covid-will-not-cure-chinas-deep-set-debt-problem


8. We have Showed this Chart Before but Now 3 Months in a Row of Falling Rents….Another Lagged Inflation Number

Housing costs 40% of CPI

https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/national-rent-data


9. The Pentagon fails its fifth audit in a row If the Defense Department can’t get its books straight, how can it be trusted with a budget of more than $800 billion per year?

Written byConnor Echols

Last week, the Department of Defense revealed that it had failed its fifth consecutive audit.

“I would not say that we flunked,” said DoD Comptroller Mike McCord, although his office did note that the Pentagon only managed to account for 39 percent of its $3.5 trillion in assets. “The process is important for us to do, and it is making us get better. It is not making us get better as fast as we want.”

The news came as no surprise to Pentagon watchers. After all, the U.S. military has the distinction of being the only U.S. government agency to have never passed a comprehensive audit.

But what did raise some eyebrows was the fact that DoD made almost no progress in this year’s bookkeeping: Of the 27 areas investigated, only seven earned a clean bill of financial health, which McCord described as “basically the same picture as last year.”

Given this accounting disaster, it should come as no surprise that the Pentagon has a habit of bad financial math. This is especially true when it comes to estimating the cost of weapons programs.

The Pentagon’s most famous recent boondoggle is the F-35 program, which has gone over its original budget by $165 billion to date. But examples of overruns abound: As Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Jack Reed (D-RI) wrote in 2020, the lead vessel for every one of the Navy’s last eight combatant ships came in at least 10 percent over budget, leading to more than $8 billion in additional costs.

And another major overrun is poised to happen soon, according to a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office.

The Navy plans to expand its ship production in an effort to maintain an edge over China, with a particular focus on a new attack submarine and destroyer ship. The Pentagon has proposed three versions of this plan at an average cost of $27 billion per year between 2023 and 2052, a 10 percent jump from current annual shipbuilding costs.

But the CBO says this is a big underestimate. The independent agency’s math says the average annual cost of this shipbuilding initiative will be over $31 billion, meaning that the Navy is underestimating costs by $120 billion over the program’s life.

As Mark Thompson of the Project on Government Oversight recently noted, these overruns “shouldn’t come as a shock” to anyone who has paid attention to DoD acquisitions in recent years. “But it does suggest a continuing, and stunning, inability by the Navy to get its ducks, and dollars, in a row,” Thompson wrote.

So will the Pentagon manage to get its financial house in order any time soon? It’s possible, if a bit unlikely.

Despite the long odds, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed a bill last year that could help make that happen. The legislation would cut one percent off the top of the budget of any part of the Pentagon that fails an audit. That means that, if the proposal had already passed, 20 of the agency’s 27 auditing units would face a budget cut this year.

Unfortunately, momentum around that bill appears to have fizzled out, leaving the Pentagon’s accountants as the last line of defense. Per Comptroller McCord, the DoD hopes to finally pass an audit by 2027, a mere 14 years after every other agency in the U.S. government blew past that milestone. That may coincide with another historical moment, according to Andrew Lautz of the National Taxpayers Union.

“[W]e could reach a $1 trillion defense budget five years sooner [than the CBO estimates], in 2027,” Lautz wrote.

Responsible Statecraft’s independent, authentic journalism promotes democratic accountability and poses a transpartisan challenge to militaristic foreign policy! Responsible Statecraft is the online magazine of the Quincy Institute(QI). Please help us lift up new voices of realism and military restraint with your 100% tax-deductible donation to the Quincy Institute in support of Responsible Statecraft. Donate here.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/11/22/why-cant-the-dod-get-its-financial-house-in-order/?utm_source=chartr&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=chartr_20221130


10. Cognitive Strategies of Elite Soccer Players and Athletes

Psychology Today Can time dilation explain soccer superstars Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo? Raj Persaud, M.D. and Peter Bruggen, M.D.

KEY POINTS

  • Perceptual time can appear to slow down in some instances and may have practical benefits.
  • Elite athletes deliberately train under more challenging conditions that they would normally endure.
  • Physical strength may compete with superior mental processing to determine who wins in sporting competitions.

Soccer is the planet’s most popular sport (outside of the USA), and the FIFA World Cup is therefore perhaps the largest mega-event in sports, possibly even surpassing the Olympics in worldwide fan interest.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi

Source: Fanny Schertzer

Arguably the two greatest soccer players of all time, Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal and Lionel Messi of Argentina, are both playing in the current FIFA World Cup tournament in Qatar, representing perhaps the last opportunity to witness such a unique spectacle.

Theories as to why some elite athletes become practically unbeatable, invoke not just physical strength but also neuroscience and psychology.

How to Freeze Time

A research paper entitled, “Can Lionel Messi’s Brain Slow Down Time Passing?” suggests that elite competitors become outstanding at anticipating their opponent’s next move, before they make it.

The authors argue that the key reason why the Argentinian soccer star is difficult to stop is that he makes sure his adversaries don’t have enough time. This is because, so the argument goes, in Messi’s mind time passes more slowly.

These authors contend that if perceptual time for an elite athlete slows down, this enables them to see more of what is happening on the field of play. Paradoxically, if their sensory systems work faster, then more computations-per-second deliver a “wider bandwidth” for grasping events on the pitch.

The authors of a study entitled “Psychological and Neural Mechanisms of Subjective Time Dilation”, show how for any set period of time, certain events can be experienced as longer than others.

For example, they suggest you try this for yourself: Take a quick glance at the second hand of a clock or watch. Immediately, the tick will pause momentarily, and appear to be longer than the subsequent ticks. Yet, they all last exactly one second.

Suppose for athletes like Lionel Messi, on the field of play, they see the equivalent of the second hand as always running slower than their opponents?

Another study entitled, “Mastery in Goal Scoring, T-Pattern Detection, and Polar Coordinate Analysis of Motor Skills Used by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo,” argues that it is the dynamic nature of superior skill that distinguishes the elite athlete; the player needs to perform the right action at the right time.

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Goal-scoring sequences were analyzed from the moment the player receives the last pass to the moment he scores a goal, and the conclusion of this investigation was that both players, Messi and Ronaldo, better anticipate the actions of their opponents, resulting in higher success in attacking.

In a paper entitled, “The Discovery of Slowness: Time to Deconstruct Gretzky’s and Messi’s Predictive Brains,” the Argentinian example, it is suggested, was preceded by the astounding case of ice-hockey star Wayne Gretzky.

Between 1979 and 1999, the Canadian ice hockey player broke numerous records. As he was not a particularly impressive physical specimen, when trying to explain how he differed from other players, it would appear that during a match, time could be said to “freeze” for him.

According to Gretzky, he considered ice hockey as a rather slow game. By weaving together his reading of immediate sporting predicaments, Gretzky often predicted what would happen next.

Being able to predict what is going to occur is not just useful for elite athletes, it is of everyday significance in our daily lives as well.

The authors of a study entitled, “Why am I Always Late? Modelling the Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Anticipatory Timing Under Uncertainty,” give an example: imagine trying to swat a fly? This requires being able to predict precisely where the insect will be and when, given the fly usually moves faster than you can. In life, you are not just spontaneously reacting to some event, but rather you are frequently engaging in anticipatory timing, calibrating your actions for a scenario you figure is coming.

A lot of life is a kind of choreography, where if you are not good at anticipating the move of your protagonist, you are going to collide.

In their experiment, subjects viewed the motion of a ball and then had to predict where it would be when it was occluded from view for a while.

The authors found there was a link between people’s ability to correctly anticipate the ball, and some other key aspects of their lives, linked to time judgments, including their tendency to be late, the ability to plan ahead, starting and completing tasks on time.

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The results of this experiment suggested that generally becoming more aware of the passage of time, even as simple as glancing at a clock more often, could help improve anticipation, and this could have knock-on benefits to us in a wide variety of different areas of life, particularly if we have generally a problem with timing.

But what if you want to get as good as Lionel Messi with your visual reaction time? Can you make time slow down with training?

A study entitled “Sports Vision Training: A Review of the State-Of-The-Art in Digital Training Techniques” points out there is a long history of athletes purposefully practicing under tougher conditions than they would find in an actual match, in order to develop.

From the use of strobe lights in otherwise dark settings, to digitally controlled eyewear that can be used in natural practice situations, by intermittently disrupting vision, individuals are only allowed to see brief snapshots of their environment. They therefore train under tougher conditions, which include a disrupted visual experience.

The stroboscopic effect, the theory goes, produces better visual skills when athletes return to normal conditions.

The Takeaway

The recurring pattern in the lesson of how to become an elite athlete is to create tougher conditions than normal, and the body and brain grow and adapt in response to the challenge, becoming stronger and fitter.

Lionel Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency as a child, and at five foot seven inches he remains one of the shortest players in the FIFA World Championship.

According to the sportstar.thehindu.com website, if we take a continental average, the European dominance in average height across teams at the current FIFA world cup is massive. The average height of European squads in Qatar is 183 cm. This drops to 180.9 cm for South American teams.

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The shortest squads in terms of average height will be from North America, with their average heights touching only 180.7.

But it appears that even in sport when physical reality like height can be very important, it is possible for psychological mechanisms to compensate.

Maybe time slows down for Lionel Messi because this is how he adapted over many years to compensate for his body being shorter, compared to all the other kids, who may now be taller.

Faster mental speed, for some, could be more than a match for slower physical growth.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/slightly-blighty/202211/cognitive-strategies-elite-soccer-players-and-athletes

Topley’s Top 10 – November 30, 2022

1. World Yield Curve Inverts

I am not familiar with this yield curve but first time in 22 years     From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading The average yield on sovereign debt maturing in 10 years or more has fallen below that of securities due in one-to-three years, according to Bloomberg Global Aggregate bond sub-indexes. That has never happened before based on data going back to the beginning of the millennium.

The Most Important Curve as we await Powell tomorrow?  He loves the 3m18m Curve – The last 2 times it inverted like it is now, the Fed has paused it’s hiking campaign.


2. This is Where We Got the August Sell Off

S&P Trades Back to 200day Moving Average


3. MegaCap Tech ETF Still Holding Above 200 Week Moving Average.

www.stockcharts.com


4. The Largest Holding in MegaCap Tech is AAPL….$550B in Buybacks Last 10 years

(Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. has shelled out more than $550 billion buying back its own shares over the past decade, more than any other US company, and the technology juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down.

“This is an aggressive bet that they made, something that Steve Jobs would have never done, and it’s paid off nicely for the company and its investors in part because the stock has done well during that period,” Munster said of the share repurchases.

Apple, the world’s largest company with a market value of almost $2.3 trillion, also is in a league of its own when it comes to share buybacks.

In two of the last five years, it has outspent the second-highest repurchaser by least $50 billion. It spent almost $90 billion last year, about equal to the market value of Citigroup Inc.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-stock-buyback-bonanza-helps-113849830.html


5. Munis Just Had Best Month Since 1986

LPL Research

https://iplresearch.com/2022/11/29/munis-a-historically-defensive-asset-class-during-economic-downturns/


6. S&P Price to Sales Update…Not Sure What it Looks Like Minis FANG+

Liz Ann Sonders Schwab S&P 500’s price/sales ratio has come down significantly from peak … orange circles highlight where ratio was at major market lows in 2020, 2018, 2009, and 2002

www.linkedin.com/in/liz-ann-sonders-57a65619/


7. U.S. Household Debt to Service Ratio

Irrelevant Investor Blog

https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2022/11/23/animal-spirits-a-confusing-year/


8. Forclosures Non-Existant Right Now

Wolf Street Blog-Foreclosures dipped in the third quarter and have been at ultra-historic lows since the mortgage forbearance programs, where delinquent mortgages were put on ice, and no longer counted as delinquent.  Most of the borrowers have now exited the forbearance programs, either by having the mortgage modified in some way, or by having sold the home and paid off the mortgage, which was easily possible amid the pandemic spike of home prices. The free pandemic money also helped.

Foreclosures, after ticking up for two quarters, ticked down again in Q3 to just 28,500 mortgages with foreclosures, thereby nixing the beginnings of a trend that had been forming. During the Good Times before the pandemic, there were about 70,000 mortgages with foreclosures, more than double the current number:

https://wolfstreet.com/2022/11/25/consumer-bankruptcies-foreclosures-delinquencies-and-collections-free-money-still-doing-the-job/


9. Gaslighting Word of Year

MorningBrew  Gaslighting “psychological manipulation over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts,”

YEAR IN REVIEW

‘Gaslighting’ is in everyone’s head

Photo Illustration: Dianna “Mick” McDougall, Source: Gyrgy Halmos/EyeEm/Getty Images

It’s 2022 and “gaslighting” is in: Merriam-Webster Dictionary chose it as its word of the year.

Interest in “gaslighting,” which the dictionary defines as “psychological manipulation over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts,” is at an all-time high. The term for your ex’s favorite activity was searched on Merriam-Webster’s website 1,740% more than in the previous year.

The sustained high volume of queries on m-w.com earned “gaslighting” its word of the year status, as the selection process is based solely on data, according to the brand.

While it may be the word of the moment, the modern definition of “gaslighting” dates back to the 1938 hit play Gas Light. The onstage thriller and its two screen adaptations chronicle a man’s diabolical attempts to convince his wife that she’s going insane by telling her that she’s imagining the dimming of the gaslights in their apartment.

The play made “gaslight” the verb it is today, though for a long time it was seldom used by anyone outside the psychology community. But starting in the 2010s, “gaslighting” steamrolled its way into common parlance.

Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find an internet rant about a bad relationship that doesn’t involve someone getting called out for being a “gaslighter,” and in some corners of the internet its imperative form frequently appears alongside the words “gatekeep” and “girlboss.”—SK

         

 

https://www.morningbrew.com/daily


10. Brett Arends’s ROI-These are the top 5 ‘financial regrets’ of Americans over 50 Marketwatch Brett Arends

There’s an old joke about a man in the Wild West who’s about to be hanged for some crime he had committed. As he is standing on the scaffold, and the hangman is placing the noose around his neck, the criminal tells the crowd, “this is going to be a real lesson for me!”

One of the great problems with retirement planning is that by the time we realize the big mistakes we’ve made it’s usually too late to do anything else. Those who have (for example) spent too much while young, and who then end up old and broke, can always say in their dotage “this has been a real lesson to me,” but how exactly is that going to help?

Which brings us to the question of what we can do to try to prevent those financial regrets, by taking the right decisions when we still have time to change our actions. This isn’t simply a challenge for each of us individually, but also one of public policy. How can we do more to encourage more and better retirement planning?

Economists Abigail Hurwitz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Olivia Mitchell of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school recently conducted a survey of older Americans on the subject of financial regret. They polled 1,764 Americans over the age of 50 through the University of Michigan’s ongoing Health and Retirement Survey. In the survey the average age was around 72.

What they found was interesting and useful.

Older Americans have five major financial regrets. One or two are quite surprising.
And those regrets increase, dramatically, when people are encouraged to think more about how long they are likely to live.

Let’s start with the regrets. In the survey, the No. 1 financial regret of older Americans, shared by a thumping 57%, was not having saved more for their retirement during their working years. And while you can’t save more if you don’t earn more, those looking back with regret also blamed themselves for “not planning ahead” and “living day to day.”

Second on the list, surprisingly: Not buying long-term-care insurance, to pay for a nursing home or similar. This was a regret by 40% of those polled. There is a widespread misapprehension, especially among non-retirees, that Medicare will pay for your stay in a nursing home. It won’t (except in narrow and quite brief exceptions). You’ll have to pay for it yourself. Medicaid will step in, but only when you have run out of money.

Third on the list, 37% of older Americans regret not working longer, while 23% regret claiming Social Security too early—that is fifth on the list.

You can start claiming at 62, and many do. But if you wait you will get more each month. Someone waiting till they are 70 to start claiming will end up getting checks that are nearly 80% bigger.

The two most powerful levers you can pull to improve your retirement prospects, even as late as your 60s, is to keep working for longer and to delay taking Social Security as long as possible.

Meanwhile at No. 4, a remarkable 33% of older Americans regretted not investing more in a lifetime annuity or similar product that would produce a guaranteed income for life.

As part of the survey, the researchers also gave some of the subjects objective information about longevity, showing them mathematically the chances that they would live to a ripe old age. The result? Financial regrets went up. In some cases, they went up a lot. “Healthy people given objective longevity information were 43% more likely to express regret about not having saved more,” Hurwitz and Mitchell report. Those given the objective data about survival probabilities “expressed twice as much regret about not having purchased LTC insurance, and 2.4 times greater regret for not having purchased lifetime income payments,” they write.

So if a key to preventing financial regret in old age is to think more, and earlier, about how long we’re likely to live, reflect on this: According to CDC data, among those who make it to 65, half can expect to live into their mid 80s and a quarter into their 90s. About 10% can expect to live to their mid-90s. And those numbers are rising. Which is great news — unless you run out of money.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-top-5-financial-regrets-of-americans-over-50-11669688497?mod=home-page