Progress

Author

Clark Gaines
January 30, 2024

Arguably the biggest hurdle to advances in technology is user adoption. When we’re presented with something new, it’s often an abstract idea at first….met with a reaction of something like:

“That’ll never work”
“I don’t understand it”

you get the idea…

Seeing future potential is difficult, but that’s where huge wealth opportunity exists. “Go where the puck is headed” said a famous hockey player named Wayne..

Think of all of the everyday things we take for granted now that at one point seemed patently absurd:

From this:

To this:

From this:

To this:

From this:

To this:

From this:

To this:

And from this..

To this:

It’s Incredible how quickly technology can be adopted, and the winners tend to grow at explosive scale.

I can’t wait to see what’s next ;)

Finally, here is what’s on my radar:

lending & credit

Lagging indicators are traditionally underused metrics… especially when it correlates to interest rate policy. The unprecedented velocity of rate hikes takes time to work its way through the system and there’s a cadence to how it affects various sectors of our economy.

Q3 consumer debt reports show that almost 1/3 of Americans in the 100 largest metros were behind on debt payments, the top 3 worst being:

  • McAllen, TX

  • El Paso, TX

  • Baton Rouge, LA

Millennials are also getting crushed….it will be interesting to what kind of economic picture the Q4 data paints while CNBC continues to be All-In on a soft landing.

macro

As noted previously, the real estate market in China is a colossal dumpster fire. The behemoth developer Evergrande has finally succumbed and will be winding up. Given the size & scope of this process it will be very interesting to see if further contagion arises.

bitcoin

It’s almost poetic that the launch of Bitcoin ETFs was met with a prompt selloff. Some of this was to be expected as the Greyscale ETF (GBTC) knew billions worth of their holdings would transition to the less expensive, pure-spot price ETFs like Blackrock’s IBIT and Cathie Wood’s ARKB. Furthermore the liquidation of the remaining assets of epic fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried’s exchange FTX also pushed down the price of Bitcoin.

With much of this forced selling coming to an end, and the upcoming Bitcoin halving later this Spring, I will be closely monitoring its price action.

If you enjoy Bitcoin and are on Twitter, you might like giving Fred Krueger a follow. He has a Math PhD from Stanford and a successful career as a prop trader on Wall Street. His analysis of the ETF market is generally prescient.

final thoughts

The “Big Game” is soon to be upon us and the media circus surrounding Travis Kelce’s girlfriend should be epic. As she arrived in Baltimore for the AFC Champ game my brother pointed me to this absurdity….a self-obsessed pop star refusing to allow herself to be photographed…but why?

The Taylor Swift team is smart. They don’t allow photos of her without their say-so. To think she would be so naive as to waltz into NFL suites every week and allow herself to be photographed & televised for 3 hours without owning the media rights is lunacy. My hunch is the NFL is exchanging Taylor’s image for hefty compensation.

If you’ve read the fine print on the back of a ticket stub you know you are fair game when you go into a stadium. Just ask my friend Jason, a lifelong Browns fan who traveled to Houston to see his beloved team get dismantled by CJ Brown and the Texans. He wound up as front page fodder…and didn’t receive a dollar.

So why is the NFL going to these lengths with Miss Swift? When the season ends on February 11th, how does the league stay in the media cycle? My view is that they will leverage Taylor’s crossover appeal as she wades into the political spectrum closer to November. Consider the 2 most visible people in our media today are Taylor Swift and Donald Trump.

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Clark Gaines focuses on alternative investment strategies at Almanack Investment Partners, an investment firm located near Philadelphia, PA. He is based in Charleston, SC.

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