Arthur D. Cashin, Jr. is a managing director of UBS Financial Services Inc. and the Director of Floor Operations for UBS Financial Services at the New York Stock Exchange is a well-respected figure on Wall Street.
Traders are trying to remain positive as stocks came off their sharp morning lows, veteran trader Art Cashin told CNBC on Wednesday.
“If we rolled over here and violated the morning lows, then it would really begin to be a problem,” said Cashin, UBS director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange. “For now, everybody is kind of crossing their fingers and whistling past the graveyard, saying, ‘OK, we tested Monday’s lows,’” he added, around midmorning as the worst of the sell-off was abating.
“The S&P held, so I guess we can be in good shape,” said Cashin, who predicted rocky markets for the next few weeks as global trade tensions mount. “I think volatility is here to stay.”
However, there is one reason and one reason only why the US equity markets are off the Monday lows.
The moving average is the most ubiquitous and simplest technical analysis tool used by discretionary and system traders, market analysts and those pestering algos. The 200 moving average, the king of moving averages is used on a daily chart to determining the overall long-term market trend over the last 40 weeks.
Discretionary and system traders, market analysts and those pestering algos also use moving averages for support and resistance. For example, in February and April of 2018, the 200 moving avg. (yellow line) served as support for the Market.
In October of 2018, the same thing happened.
And again this week,
Whether you trade cryptos, stocks, forex, but don’t have the 200 moving average on your daily chart, consider plotting it on your daily chart as it might offer you an additional edge to accompany your trading strategy.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Well it looks like Binance KYC information is all over the internet.
I couldn’t possibly provide links to all the articles I’ve read about it, because they are a dime a dozen. In case you somehow missed them all, here is one, just as an example: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-kyc-issue
Let’s get one thing very clear from the beginning: I’m not anti-Binance. As you can clearly see from my previous blog posts and Tweets, I’m actually a big fan of Binance and of CZ. My only real problem with them is their overly agnostic stance towards cryptocurrencies, even the dreaded Libra.
This is also not one of the (many) posts telling you to panic because your data has been compromised. Panic is stupid and never helps anything. It’s far better to remain calm and find a solution to the problem. It would help if Binance was a little more responsive/open about this issue – take note Binance: rapid and truthful PR is essential in such cases. People don’t panic when they know the truth, they panic when they don’t know what’s going on or when they find out that they were lied to.
This post is a reminder of what I warned you about previously, the evils of KYC.
“Try to give you warning, but everyone ignores me. Told you everything loud and clear, but nobody’s listening. Call to you so clearly, but you don’t want to hear me. Told you everything loud and clear, but nobody’s listening.”
~ Nobody’s Listening – Linkin Park (R.I.P. Chester Bennington)
I will be the first to admit that public dissemination of your KYC data was not (and still is not) first and foremost on my list of KYC-related concerns. But: I did warn you about KYC in general, and proclaimed it to be a bad thing, a bad thing which is being done in an even worse way.
I have big issues with KYC. How many of you remember this article?
I wrote it a little over two months ago. Do you remember some of the things which I said in there?
“KYC IS BAD FOR CRYPTO”
“KYC obviously stands against some of the very principles that crypto is built on!
The ability to transact with anyone, anywhere, anonymously is a core concept built into the crypto way of doing business. The matter of asking someone for their identity before agreeing to carry out crypto transactions with them should never even be raised!”
“Crypto was based on a zero-trust model which uses cryptographic methods to ensure trust. IT DOES NOT NEED INDIVIDUAL IDENTITIES IN ORDER TO FUNCTION!”
“A crypto system which demands the identities of its participants is a self-destructive system. It unbalances crypto as a whole and works against the principles on which crypto is built.”
I think that the truth behind my warnings is now starting to become apparent. It doesn’t really matter how or why your KYC data was compromised, or even who did it. What matters is that your data was able to be compromised in the first place! Fact: there is no such thing as a foolproof system. This is especially true in crypto, the cryptospace is still new and many loopholes have yet to be found. This will not be the last such incident! We need to eradicate the procedures which leave us vulnerable!
If Binance had not had any KYC data, then there would have been nothing to leak! Yes, I DO understand regulatory need for KYC / AML etc, we’ll get to that later. But first, let’s look at more of what I had to say in my anti-KYC article:
“…if I need to identify myself in order to make a crypto transaction, why would I not just use a fiat one instead? Either way I’m going to have to comply with regulations. Either way I’m going to end up paying taxes on it. Either way my identity will be known. What KYC does is to strip the usefulness away from crypto, thereby undermining its value and making it not worthwhile investing in!”
…and leading on from that…
“If my crypto has no benefit to me, then my crypto has no value to me. Then it’s just another unbacked, regulated means of exchange. I have no need for another one of those, I have enough trouble with fiat money as it is.”
Now this is where regulations and centralised exchanges really start to come into it:
“I DON’T agree with KYC procedures which exist to placate the demands of centralised entities, but I do agree with identification procedures that are required to carry out basic business transactions.”
“Centralised crypto exchanges in particular are starting to look more and more like banks (as mentioned by Heidi in her Monday “Crypto tips” video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91f-QNSmzrA&t= ). Let’s be very clear here: an exchange does NOT require your name or phone number to change one coin into another!“
“Dealing in crypto is not the same as dealing with fiat based assets, crypto is not linked to government assets and governments have absolutely no right to attempt to regulate it. One of the greatest attractions of crypto is that is is beyond the reach of regulations, if crypto is to succeed then it needs to remain that way! Don’t let your own government fool you into thinking that you have to play crypto by their rules, you don’t. Find a way around the rules. Crypto is decentralised, it is designed to to able to avoid such regulations! Giving in to regulations and supporting them is akin to driving a knife into crypto’s back, get out of the crypto space if you want to be like that, it’s counter-productive and will devalue the very asset which you are investing in.”
“KYC is part of the slippery slope to crypto regulation. I stand strongly against it.”
“Show me the government argument in favour of KYC and crypto regulation, and I will show you the counter argument that disproves it.”
A great opportunity which remains a missed opportunity in the cryptoverse, is that crypto projects are failing to leverage the utility that they can provide for one another. I have spoken harshly against projects which insist on using their own KYC procedures and which are not utilising specialist cryptocurrencies designed for that role:
“We have an array of already working and under development Identity Verification cryptocurrencies available to us: Civic, THEKEY, SelfKey, Worbli, NEO ID etc. We as crypto users need to put pressure on crypto companies to use these services. We need to support those who already use these services and demand that the others do the same.“
I have taken such crypto projects on in several private emails and occasional public Tweets – such as this one:
From twitter.com
There are exchanges and wallets which I refuse to use because they refuse to use other crypto projects. I know that in a way this looks like cutting off my nose to spite my face, but if we – the crypto community – don’t take a stand to support ID verification projects and stop the endless and unnecessary KYC procedures, who will?
I also know that some of my favourite exchanges require KYC – some at various levels, depending on what you want from them. Binance, KuCoin, even Nash – all exchanges which I highly recommend – have such requirements. I’m not suggesting that you avoid pro-KYC entities completely, but rather that you start moving in the right direction. For instance: Nash is more decentralised than most exchanges (an exchange is not simply “centralised” or “decentralised”: CEXs and DEXs lie at two ends of a continuum, and most exchanges lie somewhere between those two points), so I will be using it a lot after its August 23 launch and will slowly scale down on using the more centralised ones. Similarly, if given the option (in terms of trading pairs), I choose to use Binance DEX over traditional Binance. As seen in the Tweet above, when an exchange like IDEX takes such a bold move in the wrong direction, then I cut it off completely.
I also included quite a few original Satoshi Nakamoto quotes in my anti-KYC post. People need to be reminded of these regularly! People need to remember Satoshi’s vision!
Satoshi quotes:
“Participants can be anonymous.”
“…privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone.”
“We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.”
Conclusion
I don’t give a damn that governments want KYC. If you are a large crypto company, and local government regulations are making it hard for you to operate – then MOVE! Don’t try to block users, leave that up to the governments who want to do the regulating. Let people discover the power of the TOR network, VPNs etc. And for crying out loud – stop demanding KYC information! This won’t end well for you or your users!
Let the governments who don’t want crypto seal their own fates. The future of global finance lies in decentralised crypto. If they don’t want to be a part of that future – so be it.
We were lucky with the latest Binance KYC leak, it could have been much worse. Consider this a small taste of what is to come if we continue down the dark path of government-enforced crypto regulation.
To the crypto service providers: I ask you again, with tears in my baby-blue eyes – Use the ID verification projects! Let me login using e.g. Civic. Let me control which information I share with each company. Let me not spread 100 different photos of myself and my identification documents all around the internet!
Simple systems engineering principles are at play here people: you are introducing multiple points of failure – AND THEY ARE FAILING!
Let the KYC we know today die the death that it deserves. It does not matter about government concerns re money laundering, purchases of illegal goods etc. When criminals are selling drugs or guns on your streets, taking away money is not the answer! Yes, without money you can’t buy drugs and guns, but you also can’t buy food, clothing, fuel… The government arguments that crypto transactions are largely in criminal hands are fallacious. FAR more drugs are sold using fiat. FAR more money is laundered using fiat! FORGET ABOUT WHAT GOVERNMENT WANTS! What’s the worst that could happen? They ban crypto? Remind me again how well the drug bans are working after all these years…
Yours in crypto
Bit Brain
“The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first”
~ Mark Twain
“Crypto does not require institutional investment to succeed; institutions require crypto investments to remain successful”
In Elliott Wave terms, Huobi Token began a wave one advance in November 2018. The red wave one (blue sub-waves i-ii-iii-iv-v) finished in April this year, and the red wave two (blue sub-waves a-b-c) correction ended in June. If this wave count is correct, Huobi Token should be heading next towards the April peak in the red wave three.
Silver prices on surged more than 4% on Wednesday, this highest one day return in three years and in the process breached the key psychological $17 level.
although I’m very bullish on Gold,
but I think the red headed step child, Silver will perform better than Gold over the next several years. The gold/silver ratio is simply the amount of silver it takes to purchase one ounce of gold. And when this ratio hits 80, it reverses.
Since the mid-1990s, the ration has hit 80 four times. And when it reversed, silver outperformed gold over the next several years.
The Smart Money is recognizing what’s going on. They just bought over 85, 000 of the September call options, $17 strike price in SLV.
SLV is the iShares Silver Trust which seeks to reflect the performance of the price of silver. However, I think SLV is just beginning.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Click the tab below to listen to the 48th episode of my weekly crypto podcast ‘Two Minute Crypto.’ These are intended to be short, single-topic ramblings on some aspect of the cryptosphere. Consider dropping a like and or a review on iTunes or Podbean if you enjoy the podcast. Comments and critiques welcome.
Two Minute Crypto – Key Concepts 8 – Decentralization
Welcome to Two Minute Crypto. This instalment of the Key Concepts series focuses on explaining crypto decentralization and the challenge of achieving it. While decentralization can be a very nuanced reality across a wide range of important metrics this discussion will dwell on a high-level explanation of the term as generally used in the crypto space. It is certainly one of the key components to understanding the appeal and potential of blockchain.
When a cryptocurrency is described as decentralized the core of that claim is that it has no single point of failure and no over-arching authority. There is no controlling entity, no headquarters, no management team, no single set of servers or data repository and no- permission is required in order to use that crypto in any way an individual or business might choose. It is live in the wild and free – at once accessible and unassailable. You cannot shut down a distributed network precisely because it is very widely dispersed and easily propagated.
On paper, a decentralized network has obvious appeal. It is robust and inherently democratizing. Each participant in a decentralized network has the same set of ‘rights’ as every other user of that system and access to the network is permissionless -if you want to use it you can – there is no-one to ask and critically no individual with the power to deny you.
However, key to understanding decentralization in terms of crypto is an awareness of how incredibly difficult it is to achieve. Talk is cheap – the moniker of decentralized on the vast majority of blockchain projects is just a title – smoke and mirrors intended to gloss over a centralized reality.
At best, most crypto projects exhibit only one or two qualities of decentralization – they may be open-sourced or the network may be secured by thousands of distributed nodes. However, the vast majority of these projects are subject to points of failure. For example, there is a founder or founders who control development, or there is a small team of active developers who in reality drive the project without whom it would die. Perhaps the supply is controlled by a small number of individuals who effectively own the system or network validators are centrally appointed. To date, in reality, only a veneer of decentralization is achieved by the vast majority of projects.
The primary example of a decentralized crypto in practice is, of course, Bitcoin. There is no founder to target, no company, no centralized record keepers, permission to use is not required, supply is fixed and though development can and does take place it requires the acceptance of a majority of the distributed nodes for these proposals to actually be enacted on the mainchain.
However, even Bitcoin is an imperfect version of a decentralized network. Miners validate the currencies transactions; these miners tend to congregate into mining pools (groups) for greater efficiency and the majority of these pools are located in China. This is a clear centralization of a key component of the network creating a pinch point for Bitcoin should China enforce a ban or move to shut-down these mining pools. Would this kill BTC, absolutely not but it would adversely affect it in the short-term as the network moved to rebalance its mining system.
To recap decentralization offers many advantages but attaining such a state is incredibly challenging and to date very rarely achieved.
LINK seen from the temporality of 1D we can see how the structure of candles has found support within an important area of demand marked on the chart with a blue rectangle located within the price range of 1.9628 – 2.0597, the smaller figure shows a trend reversal setup, however, the price has found resistance in the blue horizontal located at 2.4909 so we could see an ABC structure approaching the support located at 2.1250, so we can see a change in trend, the price has to mark an HH above the blue horizontal mentioned above.
LINK seen from the temporality of 4H we can observe more closely the current movement of candles, we see that the price falling below the blue horizontal has made a pullback confirmation bearish which should cause the price to fall towards the area of demand indicated within the chart with a blue rectangle located within the price range of 2.1250 – 2.2027, the price should find strong demand in that zone so that we can see an upward momentum to position the price above 2.4909 and we can see a change of trend.
In conclusion, the price should retreat into the price range of 2.1250 – 2.2027 creating an ABC structure which would be the beginning of a game of (EW) of the next impulse of the major figure, if the price falls below that zone of demand we should wait for the reaction of the price in the major rectangle seen in the graph of 1D, if the price falls below that zone, the downward probailities will be greater, it is advisable to wait for confirmation in any of the areas indicated in the graphs above inside the rectangles and be very attentive to the movement of the next candles in 4H and closing the daily candle.
As I always say, you have to be aware of the movement, invalidations can occur, there is no 100% reliable analysis, take your own precautions when trading.
This past Monday, while the DOW dropped over 800 points, gold rose 1.5% and in the process hit a six year high. The gain yesterday is on top of the 15%+ gain since December. Gold has a lot going for itself these days. We are on the brink of a currency war between the US and China, the British pound may collapse if England leaves the EU and the addition tariffs imposed by Trump isn’t helping the global economy which is slowing down.
The best thing to do in these trying times is to obtain some hard assets if possible in form of gold / silver coins. The next best alternative, besides bitcoin is to invest in funds that mimic the performance of gold.
The 800 lb gorilla gold electronic traded fund is GLD. It’s the largest fund in the space with over $32 billion in assets under management.
Five month ago I talked about GLD and laid out my projected price action for GLD.
Although gold hasn’t broken out yet, from its recent consolidation,
the GLD has broken out.
But don’t chase price, usually breakouts return to origin of the break out. So for those who don’t have any exposure to gold, the chart suggests to go long on the pull back.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
When oil dip to a low of sub $30 in 2016 and came back from the dead, I assumed all the derivative play would follow, kind of like the tide rises all boats.
It was only when I started analyzing the relative strength of the SPDR sectors against the SPY, that I notice the energy sector didn’t follow oil and has been on this steady decline.
This means Wall Street is saying the valuation of energy companies today at $50 barrel oil is lower than the valuation of energy companies years ago at $30 barrel oil. This is a really big deal if one can connect the dots. One theme is cheap credit / junk bonds funding the expansion of the shale companies, who are having a hard time paying their debt back…this one theme has enormous consequence to the state economies of Texas, the Dakotas, etc. However, that’s another post for a different time.
Last month, I spoke about VanEck Vectors® Oil Services ETF (OIH®) which seeks to track the overall performance of U.S.-listed companies involved in oil services to the upstream oil sector, which include oil equipment, oil services, or oil drilling and how the chart suggest OIH is headed lower over time.
I have another ETF that I think is worth shorting is the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP). XOP seeks to provide investment results corresponding to the total return performance of an index derived from the oil and gas exploration and production segment of a U.S. total market composite index. Top holdings include: HollyFrontier Corp, Phillips 66, Marathon Petroleum Corp, Hess Corp, Valero Energy Corp and Marathon Oil Corp.
XOP looks very similar to OIH, with one exception. XOP breached the monthly demand and is now at all-time lows.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
In Elliott Wave terms, Promotion Coin began a wave one advance on May 23. The red wave one finished on July 9, and the red wave two correction ended on July 23. The red wave three advance finished on August 2, and the red wave four correction ended on August 6. If this wave count is correct, Promotion Coin should be heading next towards the August 2 peak in the red wave five.
The book, The Millionaire Next Door, published 1996 and having sold more than 3 million books in essence is about living below your means and being financially responsible in order to allow your cash to work for you vs. you working for cash.
If you don’t have one of these type of neighbors to mimic, just follow what the Smart Money on Wall Street is doing.
TIGER 21
Wealthy investors are trimming their stock positions, amid anxiety around a trade war and instability in Washington.
Members of TIGER 21, an investment club for high-net-worth individuals, reduced their stock allocation to 21% from 22% during the second quarter, according to the group’s quarterly report.
TIGER 21, a group of about 700 people with at least $10 million to invest, stands for The Investment Group for Enhanced Results in the 21st Century.
“They are concerned about the fact that the markets were priced to perfection; they thought they reached real highs,” said Michael Sonnenfeldt, founder of TIGER 21.
Warren is the greatest investors of our lifetime. Many don’t know he made the bulk of his money selling insurance. Yes, he owns GEICO and many other insurance companies, but I’m talking about insurance in the form of options, where he collects premium with the right to buy the asset at a later day. For example, during the Great Recession, Buffett loaned Goldman Sachs $5 billion. Not only did Goldman agreed to pay a 10% dividend on preferred shares to Buffett, which cost Goldman about $500 million a year, but when Buffett finally cashed in, in total, Buffett made about $1.75 billion in cash and about $1.35 billion in stock, roughly a 62% return on a five-year investment.
With stocks at record highs, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sold $1 billion more worth of stocks than it bought last quarter, its biggest net selling since the end of 2017. The result was that the company’s cash hoard — a major focus for investors in recent years — surged to a record $122 billion.
Between July 29th and Aug. 2nd the CEO of Amazon sold 1.5 million shares, while the stock sold off 6% during that same time frame. But Jeff is by no means hurting, he’s still the richest man in the world. Speaking of Amazon, the stock, well it’s sitting between daily supply and demand zones.
Some folks on Wall Street have a $2500 target. What I see is long term momentum decreasing. It most certainly can break out, but it most certainly can break down too. Only time will tell, but in the meantime, I’m following the Smart Money.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
