1. Energy having a Big Run but Interesting to Run the 10 Year Charts.
XLE Energy ETF 10 Year
VDE Vanguard Energy ETF 10 Year
PSCE Invesco Small Cap Energy ETF 10 Year
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/PSCE:NASDAQ?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj5k9CgxdTzAhU2oXIEHWwuDVEQ3ecFegQIDBAS
2. Shanghai to LA Container Prices Topping Out??
From Morning Brew
In 2013, the Winklevoss twins filed the first application for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Eight years and countless rejections later, the first bitcoin-based ETF could begin trading as soon as today.
The ETF, launched by the fund manager ProShares, will give virtually any investor with a brokerage account the ability to gain exposure to the world’s largest crypto.
- We didn’t say “buy the crypto,” because that’s not what’s happening. The bitcoin ETF is based on futures contracts, which allow investors to bet on the price swings of an underlying asset without owning it outright.
The SEC, Wall Street’s top sheriff, is much more comfortable allowing a futures-based bitcoin ETF to proceed than one that directly buys the tokens. Bitcoin futures have been trading on the regulated Chicago Mercantile Exchange since 2017. Bitcoin itself, meanwhile, is bought and sold on many different exchanges that are outside the gaze of the SEC.
It’s unclear whether the ETF will be a hit
The first mutual fund based on bitcoin futures, which launched in July, had only $15 million in assets under management two months later—basically negligible when put in the context of the $21.3 trillion US mutual fund industry.
And the ETF news was received by some crypto professionals with a big “meh.” A bitcoin futures ETF may not reliably track bitcoin prices, while many investors are comfortable with the current options available for buying bitcoin. When asked by CNBC whether he would be investing in the ETF, bitcoin bull Mark Cuban said, “No. I can buy BTC directly.”
Looking ahead…bitcoin’s price could be volatile in the next few weeks as four different bitcoin futures ETFs may begin trading this month.
https://www.morningbrew.com/daily
Current Bitcoin ETF Filings Etf.com
|
Fund |
Issuer |
Filing Date |
SEC Filing |
|
Bitwise Bitcoin Strategy ETF |
Bitwise |
9/14/21 |
|
|
AdvisorShares Managed Bitcoin ETF |
AdvisorShares |
8/20/21 |
|
|
Galaxy Bitcoin Strategy ETF |
Galaxy Digital |
8/18/2021 |
|
|
Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF |
Valkyrie Funds |
8/11/2021 |
|
|
Bitcoin Strategy ETF |
VanEck |
8/9/2021 |
|
|
ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF |
ProShares Advisors |
8/4/2021 |
|
|
Invesco Bitcoin Strategy ETF |
Invesco Capital Management |
8/4/2021 |
|
|
Global X Bitcoin Trust |
Global X Digital Assets |
7/21/2021 |
|
|
ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF |
21Shares |
6/28/2021 |
|
|
One River Carbon Neutral Bitcoin Trust |
One River Digital Asset Management |
5/24/2021 |
|
|
Teucrium Bitcoin Futures Fund |
Teucrium Trading |
5/20/2021 |
|
|
Galaxy Bitcoin ETF |
Galaxy Digital Capital Management |
4/12/2021 |
|
|
Kryptoin Bitcoin ETF Trust |
Kryptoin Investment Advisors |
4/9/2021 |
|
|
Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust |
FD Funds Management |
3/24/2021 |
|
|
First Trust SkyBridge Bitcoin ETF Trust |
First Trust Advisors |
3/19/2021 |
|
|
WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust |
WisdomTree Digital Commodity Services |
3/11/2021 |
|
|
NYDIG Bitcoin ETF |
NYDIG Asset Management |
2/16/2021 |
|
|
Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund |
Valkyrie Digital Assets |
1/22/2021 |
|
|
VanEck Bitcoin Trust |
VanEck Digital Assets |
12/30/2020 |
https://www.etf.com/sections/blog/etfcom-live-blog-bitcoin-etf-launch-watch
3. Crypto Stock Charts not Following Bitcoin Rally.
RIOT Sideways -50%+ from highs
COIN -50% Correction…Sideways pattern for months.
MARA different story…..Breaking out to new highs.
4. Correlation Between S&P Tech Stocks and 10 Year Treasury Yield is -.69 This Year.
Barrons–The connection between yields and tech shares is no illusion. The correlation between the S&P 500 Technology Sector index’s performance, relative to that of the S&P 500, on the one hand, and the 10-year yield on the other has averaged -0.69 this year, and hit -0.78 for the 126 days ended Sept. 30. (A correlation of -1 means that two variables move in perfect opposition.)
https://www.barrons.com/
5. Positive for America….Entrepreneurs are Booming
Barrons-The peak was in July 2020, when close to 600,000 new business applications were filed, up 100% from the year prior. Monthly applications have since fallen but remain about 50% higher than before the virus took hold
The Workers Won’t Be Coming Back, Covid or Not. Here Are Theories on Where They Went.By Lisa Beilfuss
6. Up to Date Hedge Fund Returns Since 2013
The digital economy accounts for about 10% of India’s gross domestic product, compared with 40% in today’s China. One in 10 Indians shopped online prepandemic; nearly half of all Chinese do. By Craig Mellow https://www.barrons.com/
7. Number of +/- 1% Days Normalizing Vs. Historical for 2021
8. Stock Market Leader Domino’s Pizza …-15% Correction from highs
DPZ pulls back to June levels.
9. Surge in Conversions of Office, Factories, Retail into Apartments……..Philadelphia Leads the Pack.
‘Living at the Office’ Takes On a New Meaning During the Pandemic-The sudden increase in vacant commercial spaces has fueled a surge in conversions to rental homes, according to a new study.
NY Times By Michael Kolomatsky Creating rental apartments in former offices, factories and other nonresidential buildings is nothing new, but a recent increase in vacant commercial spaces as a result of the pandemic has fueled a surge in conversions, according to a new study by RentCafé.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14realestate/offices-hotrls-converted-to-rental-apartments.html
10. Steven Pinker on Rationality
Commentary: Pinker asks, “What’s wrong with people?” but his answer is narrow.
KEY POINTS
- In a new book, Pinker provides clear and useful explanations of logic, probability, and other tools for critical thinking.
- But his explanation of irrationality focuses on motivated reasoning and myside bias.
- Overcoming irrationality could gain from motivational interviewing and political action, not just critical thinking.
The world seems awash with irrationality, evident in anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers, and political conspirators. What is to be done? Steven Pinker’s spirited, amusing, and lucid new book argues that the solution comes from increasing the amount of rationality in the world, accomplished by expanding people’s understanding of logic, probability, rational choice, and causal reasoning. But helping people to be more rational in their thoughts and actions needs improvements in empathy and politics as well as critical thinking.
Pinker provides clear and useful expositions of topics like the contribution of probability theory to producing better beliefs and actions, and the difference between correlation and causation. He then moves on to consideration of why humanity appears to be losing its mind, as shown in the “carnival of cockamamie conspiracy theories” about COVID-19, such as that vaccines implant microchips in people’s bodies.
Pinker discounts three popular explanations for why people succumb to such nonsense.
The first is that people fall prey to the systematic thinking errors that philosophers call fallacies and psychologists call biases. The second is that the “pandemic of poppycock” results from the prevalence of social media. The third is that people embrace false beliefs that give them comfort or help them make sense of the world. Instead, he thinks that irrationality arises largely from motivated reasoning and what he calls “myside bias.”
Motivated reasoning is the tendency to base conclusions on personal goals and emotions rather than on objective evidence (Kunda, 1990). We all want to believe that we are going to be happy, healthy, successful, and loved, so we distort evidence to help us think that these goals are being accomplished. I agree with Pinker that motivated reasoning is a major cause of false beliefs about COVID-19 (e.g., I’m not going to get sick, so I don’t need to be vaccinated), climate change (e.g., the weather just fluctuates, so I don’t need to change my energy habits), and politics (e.g., my wonderful leader will solve my economic problems).
Pinker’s second major source of irrationality is myside bias, which Pinker interprets as the tendency of people to reason to conclusions that enhance the correctness of their political, religious, ethnic, or cultural tribe. For example, conservatives want to support the beliefs of other conservatives, and liberals want to support the beliefs of other liberals. Pinker’s myside bias is narrower than the usual interpretation of myside bias that “occurs when we evaluate evidence, generate evidence, and test hypotheses in a manner favorable toward our prior opinions and attitudes” (Stanovich, 2021).
Here myside bias is equivalent to motivated reasoning, whereas Pinker applies it to cases where people reason to support their tribe’s interests even when they go against personal motivations. Usually, however, people’s need to belong to and identify with social groups provides a strong motivation to support their beliefs. So I think that Pinker’s narrow idea of myside bias is just a special case of motivated reasoning.
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Pinker does not address the question of why people are so prone to making motivated inferences that turn out to be false. In a recent article, “How Rationality is Bounded by the Brain,” I explain the tendency of people to succumb to motivated reasoning as the result of the tight integration of cognition and emotion in the brain. In general, this integration is beneficial because it keeps people’s thinking focused on what emotions indicate are important to their well-being. But integration causes problems when people’s motivations swamp their ability to draw conclusions based on good evidence. Other limitations of the brain that hinder rationality are its slowness and restricted size, along with imperfections in attention and consciousness.
Taking action against irrationality
These limitations raise the question of whether critical thinking is always the best way to overcome irrationality. Most of Pinker’s book concerns using good reasoning strategies such as logic and probability to overcome people’s tendencies to fall into inferential illusions. But another way to help people to overcome errors in thought and action is more like psychotherapy than logic. My blog post on motivational interviewing conjectures that a technique based on questioning and empathy might be better at overcoming motivated inference than more conventional applications of critical thinking. Experiments are needed to compare the two approaches.
Another strategy for overcoming the spread of irrationality is political action to limit the effects of irresponsible social media. Pinker dismisses social media as the main cause of the current prevalence of so many false beliefs but ignores the fact that most people today with false beliefs about COVID-19, climate change, and political conspiracies get them from social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Whatsapp. Explanation of rampant misinformation
I agree with Pinker that the world desperately needs more rationality, but critical thinking needs to combine with empathy and political action to combat the rampant spread of misinformation.
https://www.psychologytoday.