The Biggest Rate Hike in 22 Years

By James Rickards

As widely expected, the Federal Reserve raised its target rate by 50 points today, its largest increase in 22 years.

Some market analysts were even predicting a 75-basis point hike. But today, Jay Powell reassured markets by claiming that he’s not considering such a move.

The stock market soared after Powell’s reassuring announcement. The Dow gained over 900 points today, with most of the gains coming after the Fed’s announcement. The S&P gained 124 points, while the Nasdaq gained 401.

Gold had a solid day, gaining over $13.

Importantly, the Fed also announced today that it’ll begin draining its balance sheet next month (in other words, begin quantitative tightening). The balance sheet is expected to decline $47.5 billion per month starting in June, increasing to a cut as much as $95 billion per month in three months.

Afterhours Massacre as Amazon Plunges, Apple, Intel, Tesla, even Meta Dive

Meta? Didn’t it just spike? Friday is going to be interesting.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

A bunch of the biggest tech companies reported earnings after the market closed today, and their shares tanked, and Friday is going to be interesting, after today’s short-covering action.

Amazon [AMZN] shares plunged as much as 11% afterhours and currently trade down 9%, at $2,631, down 30% from their 52-week high, and back where they’d first been in June 2020.

This debacle is occurring despite the huge bout of financial engineering in early March to stem the slide of its shares at the time: Its announcement of a most-splendid but useless 20-for-1 stock split and an even more splendid share buyback program that it wants to fund with an enormous amount of borrowed cash. But the bloom has come off the rose, even tried-and-true financial engineering doesn’t do the trick anymore, and shares just let go (data via YCharts):

Why does Ethereum have an intrinsic value?

1.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain and the first network to launch smart contract functionality.

Ethereum was launched in July 2015, and in the span of a few years, it increased considerably in value due to its wide range of decentralized application (DApp) offerings. The explosive rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have sealed its success as the most actively used blockchain network.

Furthermore, its native currency, Ether (ETH), has solidly maintained its second position by market capitalization and daily volume in the cryptocurrency space.

2.

What is Ethereum’s intrinsic value?

Before identifying what is unique about Ethereum, let us first explore the definition of intrinsic value and how it applies to digital currencies like Ethereum.

In finance, the intrinsic value represents the perceived or actual value of an asset or a currency. It should not be confused with the market price because assets can be over or undervalued.

The secret to retiring a millionaire

Among the many great quotes from Warren Buffett is this gem: “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”

I love this quote because it highlights the importance of being patient with your investments. 

The simple fact is this: Time is the most important ingredient to generating wealth. With enough time, anyone can get rich.

This is true because of the magic of compound interest. 

You might have read about this idea before—but it’s a critical concept for novice and experienced investors alike… and it’s all the more important to remember in today’s difficult market, when everyone is running scared.

Bitcoin Is the World’s Next Reserve Asset

By Teeka Tiwari, editor, Palm Beach Daily

Recent geopolitical events have made one thing obvious: Western governments can seize all your assets… even if you’re part of the traditional financial system.

Just days after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the United States and its allies sanctioned the country’s central bank.

They froze about $600 billion worth of Russia’s foreign currency reserves.

These reserves aren’t piles of cash sitting in Moscow vaults… Most of them are electronic balances in commercial and central bank accounts in the U.S. and other Western nations.

The U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency. And Washington controls the dollar-based financial system.

If you want to use that system, you have to play by Washington’s rules.

Elon Musk Offers to Buy Twitter to Take Company Private

Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car maker Tesla (TSLA), offered to buy social media company Twitter (TWTR) for about $43 billion in cash.

The offer of $54.20 a share is a 38% premium over the price of the stock the day before Musk's investment in the company was made public earlier this month, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk plans to take the company private in order to "go through the changes that need to be made," he wrote in a text to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor replicated in the filing.

In late March, Musk criticized the social media platform for failing to adhere to principles of free speech, saying that it serves as "de facto public town square" and this failure therefore undermines democracy.

Oil Importance in the Russian “Land of Fire”

To understand oil prices and production you must understand the importance of oil in Russia.

The modern oil industry was born in an area known as “The Land of Fire” in the Russian Empire.

Back in 1846, the world’s first modern oil well was drilled on the Apsheron Peninsula near modern-day Baku, Azerbaijan. That was 13 years before Drake drilled Titusville well in the U.S.A.

Called the Bibi-Heybat oil field, it laid the foundation for the newly found “black gold”.

In 1899, Tsar Nicholas was in his first decade of rule over the Russian Empire…

And Azerbaijan (then part of the Russian Empire) led the world in the production of oil that year – producing half of the world’s oil.

Little did Nicholas II understand how oil pricing dynamics would lead to the +300 year rule of his family’s dynasty over the Russian Empire.

  • By the turn of the 20th Century, the Russian Empire was the world’s largest oil producer. The Russian oil fields in Baku alone were producing 230,000 bopd while all of the U.S. was producing 183,000 bopd.

How I Retired at 42

By Jeff Clark

I was only 19 years old when I made my first options trade.

I had a gut feeling the market would go higher… so I bought four S&P 100 call options at $1.50 – a total investment of $600.

A few hours later, the options were trading at $4.50. I sold and took the $1,200 profit – a 200% gain…

And I was hooked on options forever.

My next trade was in IBM. I bought 10 calls for $1. This time, it took a couple of days to double my money. Next, I bought Digital Equipment put options… which nearly tripled in just a few days.

I made 17 trades during my first six weeks as a trader. Every single one was a winner.

Going 17 for 17 was a remarkable feat for a rookie trader – especially since I wasn’t using any fundamental or technical analysis. I was just going with my gut.

But I was careful not to put more than $1,000 or $2,000 into any single trade. And I still managed to turn my $5,000 brokerage account into $50,000 in just six weeks…

67% of Cardano holders underwater and most bought less than 1 year ago

ADA prices are sliding back toward a dollar, putting more holders in the red as gains are eroded.

67% of Cardano holders underwater and most bought less than 1 year agoNEWS

As Cardano (ADA) prices fall back toward the psychological one dollar level, more and more investors are finding themselves with unrealized losses by holding on to the digital asset.

Cardano’s ADA token has had a bearish week. Since Monday, the price has fallen 11.4%, resulting in more holders being in the red. More significantly, ADA is now 64.7% below its September 2 all-time high of $3.09 and is in danger of falling below a dollar over the next few days should the trend continue.

According to IntoTheBlock’s in/out of the money indicator, more than two-thirds, or 67% of ADA holders, are underwater. A quarter of Cardano investors are green, and 9% of them are at a breakeven point.