Topley’s Top 10 – December 01, 2021

1.American’s Cash in Bank Has Never Grown This Fast Before.

From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading


2.Fundamental Measure-The Buffett Indicator Hits Nosebleed Levels.

As shown below, never before in the post-WWII era have stocks been as richly valued relative to the size of the economy. This relates back to our concern that the next serious correction or bear market in stocks could have an outsized impact on both confidence and the economy.

by Liz Ann Sonders, Kevin Gordon of Charles Schwab, 11/30/21

Buffett Indicator in Stratosphere

Source: Charles Schwab, Bloomberg, as of 6/30/2021.

Advisor Perspectives https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2021/11/30/2022-u-s-market-outlook-under-pressure


3.Brent Crude Oil -15% Correction But Holds 200 Day for Now

www.stockcharts.com


4.Natural Gas -20% in 3 Days

Natural Gas Tanks

Bespoke Investment Group–Since Friday’s close, US natural gas future prices have declined 16.4% as of 11:00 AM on Tuesday, but there have been price discrepancies across the globe. We discussed these differences between natural gas prices in the US versus Europe in today’s Morning Lineup. In the US, natural gas prices have not seen a two-day decline in excess of 15% since 12/31/18 and going back to 2000, two-day pullbacks of this magnitude have only occurred 12 other times, four of which occurred within a month and a half time period (12/13/2000 – 1/30/2001). Heading into the current decline, the speculator net position was in a normal range, so dramatically offsides positioning from futures traders is likely not the driving factor behind this move. For more information on that positioning data, check out Monday’s Closer.

Looking ahead, forward returns of natural gas after a two-day pullback of more than 15% (without another occurrence in the prior three months) tend to be negative (which can be seen as a positive for consumers as it translates to lower energy costs).  The day after the six prior periods shown, the average next-day performance for natural gas was a decline of 0.7% (median: -2.9%).  Over the next week, the average decline was just 0.4% but the median decline was much greater at 6.1%.  Looking out over the next one and three months, performance continued to weaken with average declines of 8.8% (median: 9.2%) and 4.9% (median: -8.7%), respectively.  Downside momentum in natural gas was also pretty consistent across as natural gas was only positive across all the time windows shown one-third of the time.

https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/natural-gas-tanks


5.Bond Yields Move Lower Highest Since Covid.

https://iplresearch.com/2021/11/30/thoughts-on-fridars-treasury-market-rally/


6.Beyond Meat -56% from Highs…Approaching Covid Levels $60

For expensive names to really break…buyers on the dips need to get wiped out

www.stockcharts.com


7.The Robots Invade Private Equity

Bloomberg–The robot at Stripes enjoys reading. From the investment firm’s Manhattan offices, it consumes everything it can on the 13 million private companies it tracks. When it finds one it likes, about 0.006% of the time, human co-workers start the often years-long process of relationship building.

High frequency trading this isn’t. But the unusual marriage of algorithms and shoe leather has scored Stripes some big wins. Now, it’s getting closer to perfecting the art of not losing.

Cookies, Underwear

By modern private equity standards, Stripes isn’t big. The New York-based firm had $7.5 billion of assets under management as of June and staff of less than 70, only a handful of whom are investors.

Still, since launching in 2008, Stripes has generated an aggregate internal rate of return, net of fees, of 46%. Its fourth fund was running at more than 62% as of June 30, putting Stripes at the top of 100 similar sized and focused funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That number has since risen to closer to 90%, people with knowledge of the fund said.

The firm’s approach is that the best product will win, regardless of the market. Its portfolio, with stakes in businesses as unalike as Israeli cybersecurity firm Axonius Inc., underwear-maker Parade and iconic Manhattan cookie store Levain Bakery Inc., attests to that belief.

That any of them rose to the attention of SONAR, which trawls for information on every private company it can identify outside of China, is a feat in itself. Currently, around 500 of the 13 million companies that it tracks rate well enough for it to pass onto Stripes’ investment team.

The scoring formula is tightly held, but the robot pulls from a diverse universe of information, including credit-card scans, company filings, news reports, consumer-engagement numbers, employee-retention data and cohort performance. What’s clear from talking to those familiar with its development, however, is that much of SONAR’s time is concerned with a puzzle unique to investing in private companies.

Where algorithms that trade public securities have the luxury of accessible and standardized information, SONAR depends on glimpses. To the extent that private companies disclose anything, it is often incomplete, long after the fact and without useful comparisons. Overcoming this asymmetry is where the humans come in.

A Secretive Robot Is Helping Investment Firm Stripes Pick Winning Bets-Stripes has spent years teaching its robot to find what it thinks are the best private companies for its investment team to pursue.

By

Ed Hammond

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-30/a-secretive-robot-is-helping-investment-firm-stripes-pick-winning-bets?srnd=premium&sref=GGda9y2L


8.Kelly ETFs Files for First Ethereum ETF

Kelly Files For ETH Futures ETF Dan MikaETF.COM

In the wake of three bitcoin futures ETFs launching in the last month and a half, a firm headed by Kevin Kelly is looking to launch the first-ever ethereum futures fund on a U.S. exchange.

Kelly ETFs filed for the Kelly Ethereum Ether Strategy ETF (EX) on Monday under the Investment Company Act of 1940, meaning it could become automatically effective on Feb. 12 next year barring delays from regulators.

The fund would aim to buy near-month ethereum contracts on the CME, similar to how the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), the Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF) and the VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (XBTF) aim to closely track the spot price of bitcoin.

EX’s filing didn’t include an exchange or an expense ratio.

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin, sporting a $522.6 billion market cap, according to CoinMetrics. Its futures also trail well behind bitcoin futures in size. A total of 9,975 ethereum futures contracts traded on the CME on Friday, compared to 16,000 bitcoin contracts.

The filing is the newest test from ETF issuers seeing just how much the SEC is willing to budge from its longtime stance against allowing cryptocurrencies to underlie registered investment vehicles. VanEck and ProShares both filed ethereum futures funds days after SEC Chairman Gary Gensler signaled his preference for futures-based funds over physical ETFs, but both were pulled in late August.

The EX filing is the only ethereum futures ETF in front of the SEC as of Monday.

BITO was the first ETF to launch in the U.S. with bitcoin as its underlying in mid-October, and crossed the $1 billion AUM mark within two days in what was seen as a watershed moment for widespread crypto adoption. But the SEC denied VanEck’s latest effort to launch a physically backed bitcoin ETF two weeks ago.

Contact Dan Mika at dan.mika@etf.com, and follow him on Twitter

https://www.etf.com/sections/bitcoin-crypto/kelly-files-eth-futures-etf


9.Hockey Stick World Population Growth…Now in Downtrend.

The Hockey Stick Curve

For even more context, let’s zoom way out by using a timeline that goes back to when woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth:

The Growth Rate is Shrinking

Because of demographics and falling fertility rates, the growth rate of the global population has actually been on a downward trend for some time.

As this growth rate gets closer to zero, the population curve has become less exponential like we saw in the first graphs. Population growth is leveling out, and it may even go negative at some point in the future.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/populaton-boom-charting-nearly-8-billion-people/


10. 10 Bad Habits You Really Need to Break

By Travis Bradberry | February 19, 2019 | 

 

@criene via Twenty20

You are the sum of your habits. When you allow bad habits to take over, they dramatically impede your path to success. The challenge is bad habits are insidious, creeping up on you slowly until you don’t even notice the damage they’re causing.

“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” –Warren Buffett

Breaking bad habits requires self-control—and lots of it. Research indicates that it’s worth the effort, as self-control has huge implications for success.

Related: Why Self-Control Is So Important

University of Pennsylvania psychologists Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman conducted a study where they measured college students’ IQ scores and levels of self-control upon entering university. Four years later, they looked at the students’ grade point averages (GPA) and found that self-control was twice as important as IQ in earning a high GPA.

The self-control required to develop good habits (and stop bad ones) also serves as the foundation for a strong work ethic and high productivity. Self-control is like a muscle—to build it up you need to exercise it. Practice flexing your self-control muscle by breaking the following bad habits:

1. Using your phone, tablet or computer in bed.

This is a big one that most people don’t even realize harms their sleep and productivity. Short-wavelength blue light plays an important role in your mood, energy level and sleep quality. In the morning, sunlight contains high concentrations of this blue light. When your eyes are exposed to it directly, the blue light halts production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and makes you feel more alert. In the afternoon, the sun’s rays lose their blue light, which allows your body to produce melatonin and start making you sleepy. By the evening, your brain doesn’t expect any blue light exposure and is very sensitive to it.

Most of our favorite evening devices—laptops, tablets and mobile phones—emit short-wavelength blue light brightly and right in your face. This exposure impairs melatonin production and interferes with your ability to fall asleep as well as with the quality of your sleep once you do nod off. As we’ve all experienced, a poor night’s sleep has disastrous effects. The best thing you can do is to avoid these devices after dinner (television is OK for most people as long as they sit far enough away from the set).

2. Impulsively surfing the internet.

It takes you 15 consecutive minutes of focus before you can fully engage in a task. Once you do, you fall into a euphoric state of increased productivity called flow. Research shows that people in a flow state are five times more productive than they otherwise would be. When you click out of your work because you get an itch to check the news, Facebook, a sport’s score, or what have you, this pulls you out of flow. This means you have to go through another 15 minutes of continuous focus to reenter the flow state. Click in and out of your work enough times, and you can go through an entire day without experiencing flow.

3. Checking your phone during a conversation.

Nothing turns people off like a mid-conversation text message or even a quick glance at your phone. When you commit to a conversation, focus all your energy on the conversation. You will find that conversations are more enjoyable and effective when you immerse yourself in them.

4. Using multiple notifications.

Multiple notifications are a productivity nightmare. Studies have shown that hopping on your phone and email every time they ping for your attention causes your productivity to plummet. Getting notified every time a message drops onto your phone or an email arrives in your inbox might feel productive, but it isn’t. Instead of working at the whim of your notifications, pool all your emails and texts and check them at designated times (e.g., respond to your emails every hour). This is a proven, productive way to work.

5. Saying “yes” when you should say “no.”

Research conducted at the University of California in San Francisco shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression, all of which erode self-control. Saying no is indeed a major self-control challenge for many people. “No” is a powerful word that you should not be afraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, emotionally intelligent people avoid phrases like “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them. Just remind yourself that saying no is an act of self-control now that will increase your future self-control by preventing the negative effects of over commitment.

6. Thinking about toxic people.

There are always going to be toxic people who have a way of getting under your skin and staying there. Each time you find yourself thinking about a co-worker or person who makes your blood boil, practice being grateful for someone else in your life instead. There are plenty of people out there who deserve your attention, and the last thing you want to do is think about the people who don’t matter when there are people who do.

7. Multitasking during meetings.

You should never give anything half of your attention, especially meetings. If a meeting isn’t worth your full attention, then you shouldn’t be attending it in the first place; and if the meeting is worth your full attention, then you need to get everything you can out of it. Multitasking during meetings hurts you by creating the impression that you believe you are more important than everyone else.

8. Gossiping.

Gossipers derive pleasure from other people’s misfortunes. It might be fun to peer into somebody else’s personal or professional faux pas at first, but over time, it gets tiring, makes you feel gross and hurts other people. There are too many positives out there and too much to learn from interesting people to waste your time talking about the misfortune of others.

“Great minds discuss ideas, average ones discuss events, and small minds discuss people.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

9. Waiting to act until you know you’ll succeed.

Most writers spend countless hours brainstorming their characters and plots, and they even write page after page that they know they’ll never include in the books. They do this because they know that ideas need time to develop. We tend to freeze up when it’s time to get started because we know that our ideas aren’t perfect and that what we produce might not be any good. But how can you ever produce something great if you don’t get started and give your ideas time to evolve? Author Jodi Picoult summarized the importance of avoiding perfectionism perfectly: “You can edit a bad page, but you can’t edit a blank page.”

10. Comparing yourself to other people.

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing yourself to others, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When you feel good about something that you’ve done, don’t allow anyone’s opinions or accomplishments take that away from you. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.

By practicing self-control to break these bad habits, you can simultaneously strengthen your self-control muscle and abolish nasty habits that have the power to bring your career to a grinding halt.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.

https://www.success.com/10-bad-habits-to-break/