Generally, a Federal Reserve rate cut is very well-received by the stock market, especially if it’s done during a growing economy.
In fact, there have been six such rate cuts since 1971, and the stock market has rallied after every single one. On average, the stock market has risen 9.7% in the three-month period following a non-recession rate cut. If a similar outcome were to happen now, it would indeed send stocks to new highs.
In December, Powell said the Fed’s program to reduce the bond holdings on its balance sheet was on “autopilot.” Powell later went on and raised short-term rates another one-quarter percent. The Markets didn’t like what Powell said and showed him by tanking.
In early January, during a round table with Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, Powell said, there is no preset path for raising rates or adjusting the balance sheet. The Markets like what he had to say, eventually climbing 10%.
Then in late January, Powell said the case for raising rates has weakened somewhat. In addition, Powell made it very clear to the Markets and used the word “patient” eight times in his speech regarding hiking interest rates.
The FOMC meets on July 30 and 3 where they will announce, no rate cuts, 25 basis point rate cut or 50 basis point rate cut. If Powell cut rates by 50 basis point, we will see new all time highs within weeks. Anything other then that and we may see a sell off.
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.
Bitcoin (BTC) has gained legal recognition by a second Chinese court in a further boost for the cryptocurrency in one of its harshest environments.
A watershed for Bitcoin in China
According to investor Dovey Wan, who linked to local media coverage, the Hangzhou Internet Court formally described Bitcoin as virtual property on July 18.
The second such court to attribute property status to Bitcoin, the ruling came about as part of a dispute between a now-defunct exchange and one of its users who lost funds.
For Wan, the case marks a significant watershed for Bitcoin in China, where a blanket ban on trading it has been in place since September 2017.
In about five hours, the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency Zcash will spawn a new blockchain network called Ycash.
It’ll be the first of its kind to boast a near-identical codebase to the Zcash blockchain but function as a separate network and de facto competitor.
First announced in April, the effort is spearheaded by long-time Zcash supporter Howard Loo. Loo described in a Zcash forum post that Ycash was a preemptive move to resist future community decisions that may extend Zcash’s system of developer funding known as the “Founder’s Reward” beyond a promised 10 percent cap of total token supply.
Bitcoin surged $1,000 in just 30 minutes during U.S. trading hours Thursday, a move that found the leading cryptocurrency rising from $9,335 to a high of $10,400, based on Bitstamp data.
The sudden rally could be associated with the massive unwinding of short BTC/USD positions (profit taking) seen in 30 minutes to 15:00 UTC, as reported by bot powered twitter handle @WhaleCalls.
Prices had dropped to a low of $9,280 at 14:00 UTC, having repeatedly failed to beat the psychological resistance of $10,000 in the Asian session and during early European trading hours. But, bitcoin’s price rise is now boding well for the broader market.
Names like litecoin and bitcoin SV are reporting double-digit gains at press time. Meanwhile, ethereum’s ETH token and XRP are up 6 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of global financial services firm JPMorgan Chase, argued that Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra does not pose a threat in the foreseeable future.
As reported by CNBC, Dimon delivered his comments during a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, July 16. Dimon said that he would not spend too much time on Libra, specifying that “to put it in perspective, we have been talking about blockchain for seven years and very little has happened. We are going to be talking about Libra three years from now.”
Dimon continued saying that any new effort will have to comply with the industry’s Anti-Money Laundering provisions.
Steve Wozniak, co-founder of American tech giant Apple, has invested in a new blockchain-based company headquartered in Malta. Wozniak is now the co-founder of energy efficiency company Efforce, according to a report by Maltese news daily The Malta Independent on July 18.
Wozniak co-founded the company alongside Jacopo Visetti, who — according to his LinkedIn profile — works in the renewable energy and environment sector. According to this page, Visetti co-founded Efforce in January, 2018 — approximately one year and seven months ago.
According Efforce’s LinkedIn page, the company provides the first blockchain-based platform focused on investing in energy efficiency, with its stated goal “to be recognized as the first and main platform in the world for tokenized energy savings.”
We are currently consolidating just upper the major resistance line at 0.24$ while the BTC is having a very nice bounce. It is becoming hard for all the altcoins and STEEM is not better than other and is sometimes even worst. What to say, we have to wait for better days, the market doesn’t really care currently for the altcoin market and I really don’t know how many time it will last like that. Courage and perhaps focus on the BTC if you want do short term trades.
Prior to earnings, the market makers were pricing in a $25 move in either direction. Two levels the chart suggested to pay attention to was the daily supply at $402 and the daily demand at $313.
After earnings, the stock price crated to the downside more than $35 or 10%. The reason price fell that much was because total streaming paid net additions came in at 2.7 million, below expectations of 5.06 million analysts expected. Netflix also lost 126,000 domestic paid subscribers versus an expected gain of 309,000.
The CEO, Reed Hastings attempted to calm investors down call saying the quarter was just a hiccup due to anticipated strong demand for a host of new original content. If you believe in Netflix and what Reed had to say, the price of Netflix is selling at a discount now as the chart suggests to buy at or near the daily demand at $313.
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.
Amidst a decline in the price of bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency could find support at $7,500 – that is if it follows past patterns on the charts.
Bitcoin has faced selling pressure over the last few days, despite an impending golden crossover on the three-day chart – a bullish crossover of the 50- and 200-candle moving averages, as discussed last week. As of writing, the 50-candle moving average (MA) is on an upward trajectory and looks set to cross above the 200-candle MA in the next few days.
It is worth noting, however, that a similar golden crossover on the three-day chart was observed in early February 2016, when a bitcoin bull market was then in its nascent stages.
The Japanese government is attempting to spearhead the creation of a new, global cryptocurrency payments network that would be similar to SWIFT.
Replace SWIFT with a global crypto payments network?
Citing an anonymous source, a Reuters report published on July 18 claimed that the country’s push for the network is motivated by a resolve to combat money laundering more effectively.
While plans are being kept firmly under wraps, the source alleged that Tokyo hopes to have the network established within the next few years.
Cuban expat Claudia Rodriguez of the Brazilian startup Fusyona, the sole bitcoin exchange proactively serving Cubans, told CoinDesk the exchange has nearly 700 accounts since launching in 2018. She said up to 60 users purchase a total of one or two bitcoins every week.
U.S. lawmakers repeatedly pressed Facebook’s top blockchain executive to halt development of the Libra cryptocurrency during a contentious hearing on the project Wednesday.
They didn’t get far.
David Marcus, the CEO of Facebook’s subsidiary Calibra, reiterated his promise that Libra would not launch until regulators’ concerns were fully addressed. But he stopped short of committing to freezing technical work on the project, much to the chagrin of House Financial Services Committee members.
The committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), had previously called for a moratorium, and it was one of the first things she brought up in the hearing, asking the Facebook executive:
“Will you stop dancing around this question and commit here in this committee … to a moratorium until Congress enacts an appropriate legal framework to ensure that Libra and Calibra do what you claim it will do?”
Jamie Dimon, CEO of global financial services firm JPMorgan Chase, argued that Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra does not pose a threat in the foreseeable future.
As reported by CNBC, Dimon delivered his comments during a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, July 16. Dimon said that he would not spend too much time on Libra, specifying that “to put it in perspective, we have been talking about blockchain for seven years and very little has happened. We are going to be talking about Libra three years from now.”
Dimon continued saying that any new effort will have to comply with the industry’s Anti-Money Laundering provisions.
Bitcoin Suisse, a crypto-broker and pioneer of Switzerland’s “Crypto Valley,” has taken anticipatory steps to comply with a “maturing” regulatory environment.
The firm announced on Tuesday that it has applied for a banking license with Swiss Financial Markets Supervision Authority (FINMA), as well as a security dealer’s license, mandated by the Stock Exchange and Securities Trading Act (SESTA). In the past, financial authorities at the Swiss Federal Council said blockchain and distributed ledger technology will be governed by existing regulatory schemes.
However, a Suisse company representative said:
“We believe that in the long-term, more regulation will follow, as soon as the legislation catches up with the technological developments of the space. We believe that within this new regulatory environment, companies without the necessary licenses will have a limited ability to serve clients with the full spectrum of high quality, innovative crypto-financial products and solutions.”
“Sia will be hosting its congressional hearing..oops..#AMA tomorrow, July 18th from 12 pm EST on @reddit and twitter!”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yesterday :
Here is the current chart :
We are currently consolidating just upper the major resistance line at 0.24$ while the BTC is having a very nice bounce. It is becoming hard for all the altcoins and STEEM is not better than other and is sometimes even worst. What to say, we have to wait for better days, the market doesn’t really care currently for the altcoin market and I really don’t know how many time it will last like that. Courage and perhaps focus on the BTC if you want do short term trades.
Blue Apron is responsible for pioneering meal kits to the masses and went public in 2017, but they really had no competitive advantage. After Amazon bought Whole Foods, two weeks after Blue Apron went public, Amazon announced it was entering the meal kit business.
Than with the advent of the fast / gourmet delivery service companies, it gave consumer many more options.
SIDE NOTE: I know people who know people who will order one coffee/latte through grubhub even though Starbucks is one block away from their apartment building.
Ever since Blue Apron went public the stock has been in a decline and did actually go under the $1 level. Because they feared being delisted, Blue Apron did a reverse split to artificially inflate their stock price. Why is this important….
Blue Apron Holdings Inc’s beleaguered stock closed 35% higher on Tuesday after the meal-kit subscription service said it would add Beyond Meat Inc’s plant-based burgers to its menu, betting on a growing market for premium meat alternatives to attract new customers.
Blue Apron said its Signature Two-Serving Plan – a curated meal plan subscription – would include recipes using the Beyond Burger, a four-ounce patty with 20 grams of plant-based protein.
“We know a growing number of customers are interested in plant-based proteins, whether as an alternative to meat, a desire to explore a new ingredient, or an opportunity to make more sustainable food choices,” Blue Apron Chief Executive Linda Kozlowski said in a statement.
According to a report by Bloomberg NEF, the global investment in clean-energy projects has dropped to its lowest level in six years, at $117.6bn for H1 2019, representing a 14% decline yoy.
China has reduced its investment by 39%, following reductions in solar subsidiaries. The US and Europe also reduced their investments by 6% and 4%, respectively. Spending in Japan, India, Spain, and Sweden rose.
The drop follows a slowdown in renewable-energy construction last year, and coincides with a reduction of private investments into clean energy companies (down by 2% to $4.7bn).
Despite the drop in China’s investments, the country remains the world’s biggest clean-energy spender. Spending may pick up again in H2 as some big offshore wind deals come through and China holds an auction for solar power.
Analytics and Comments
Renewables were becoming unsustainable as the grid was already starting to fail to cope with them. In 2016, solar curtailment rates in China rose to 16% as a result.
This is the reason why solar plus energy storage is the only option, with massive growth already happening in places such as the US and Australia.
With growth in high power DC charging infrastructure, utilities and transmission companies will be forced in to invest in stationary storage, microgrids, virtual power plants, and electricity trading between households and commercial clients.
This is already happening and, in my view, represents a growth opportunity for the likes of big industrials such as Siemens, Schneider, ABB, and also smaller players such as Alfen, PSI and EPS.
The news comes at a time when a new study by PLoS One, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, reports that more than 75% of the world’s major cities will experience drastic changes in climate by 2050.
Libra is a security, says a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman in prepared remarks to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Gary Gensler, who chaired the CFTC from 2009 to 2014 and previously held leadership roles at the U.S. Treasury Department, says in written testimony that Facebook’s new cryptocurrency project looks like an investment vehicle and that Libra may even resemble some banking structures.
Gensler will testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, as part of a panel of expert witnesses on the potential implications of Libra. He will join Public Citizen president Robert Weissman, Columbia University law professor Katharina Pistor and Georgetown University law professor Chris Brummer.
Cubans are quietly exploring cryptocurrency use-cases on the politically isolated island, even watching Facebook’s Libra project with cautious optimism.
Cuban expat Claudia Rodriguez of the Brazilian startup Fusyona, the sole bitcoin exchange proactively serving Cubans, told CoinDesk the exchange has nearly 700 accounts since launching in 2018. She said up to 60 users purchase a total of one or two bitcoins every week.
“For Cuba, that is a lot,” Rodriguez said. “Cuba is probably going to be very interesting for Libra [developers] and I hope there will be some potential there.” In its launch materials for the Libra stablecoin, Facebook has focused heavily on the potential to connect the world’s underbanked with digital financial services.
Facebook’s blockchain lead David Marcus told lawmakers he would be willing to accept 100 percent of his salary in the social media giant’s proposed Libra cryptocurrency.
During a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the controversial project Tuesday, the ranking member of the panel, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), asked Marcus if he trusted Libra enough to put skin in the game this way.
“You really think people should trust you with their hard-earned money, I think it’s delusional,” Brown said, after enumerating Facebook’s history of privacy abuses. He then posed the question: “Will you accept all of your compensation in that new currency?”
The volume of blockchain in healthcare market worldwide is forecast to reach more than $1.7 billion by 2026.
In a press release published on July 16, consulting services to information technologies firm Acumen Research and Consulting (ARC) has projected that the global blockchain in healthcare market on the global scale will reach over $1.7 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 48.1%.
Based on geography, America purportedly dominates with the largest share in the global blockchain in healthcare market, wherein the United States is a mature market that hosts the greater adoption of smart technology in manufacturing and healthcare.
Former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul says he is in favor of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology because he likes competing currencies. Ron Paul delivered his remarks in a “Squawk Alley” interview on CNBC on July 15.
According to Paul, cryptocurrencies are a great idea, and governments should only step in to regulate the space to prevent fraud:
“… I’m for the least amount of regulation. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to cryptocurrencies. I think it’s a great idea. And I only have one rule: no fraud … I think that the government has a role. And [if] somebody has a case that there is fraud, I think it should be investigated … What I want to do is legalize the freedom of choice, absent blatant fraud.”
“Join us in Cambridge, England, 17 July to design the best trading agent.”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yesterday :
Here is the current chart :
We are currently consolidating just upper the major resistance line at 0.24$ while the BTC is having a very nice bounce. It is becoming hard for all the altcoins and STEEM is not better than other and is sometimes even worst. What to say, we have to wait for better days, the market doesn’t really care currently for the altcoin market and I really don’t know how many time it will last like that. Courage and perhaps focus on the BTC if you want do short term trades.
Congressional hearings on Facebook’s Libra project are likely to focus more on the company’s privacy failings than on unresolved policy questions for cryptocurrency.
Lawmakers will probably also grill Facebook blockchain lead David Marcus on the company’s choice of Switzerland as the home for the Libra Association.
Though Facebook intends to launch Libra next year, regulatory and congressional scrutiny may throw that timeline into jeopardy.
Bitcoin has come under pressure ahead of the U.S. governmental hearings on Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency on July 16 and 17.
The price of a single bitcoin, which stood near $13,000 five days ago, fell below $10,000 earlier today and tested the 50-day moving average at $9,900 for the first time since February 18.
Facebook’s head of Calibra – one of the entities set up to govern and develop the crypto project – David Marcus is scheduled testify to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.
United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin shares President Donald Trump’s concerns on the use of cryptocurrency to finance illicit activity, and stresses the role of enforcing FinCEN regulations with respect to crypto-dealing organizations. Mnuchin made his remarks at a press conference on July 15.
Mnuchin called the use of cryptocurrencies to fund illicit activity a national security issue, saying that billions of dollars have been used for this purpose:
“Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have been exploited to support billions of dollars of illicit activity, like cybercrime, tax evasion, extortion, randomware, illicit drugs, human trafficking … This is indeed a national security issue.”
The cryptocurrency futures exchange CoinFLEX, backed by Polychain Capital and investor Roger Ver, will launch its first initial futures offering (IFO) this week.
“This is the first time we’ve made a futures market for a coin that doesn’t actually exist yet,” CoinFLEX CEO Mark Lamb told CoinDesk. “It’s a determiner of the price before the asset exists.”
Notably, Polkadot’s DOT will be CoinFLEX’s flagship IFO.
Stepping back, CoinFLEX launched in April with four futures contracts including bitcoin and ether. The platform then launched its own exchange token called FLEX earlier this month.
The Polkadot IFO on Wednesday will be the first sale that requires participants to buy the exchange’s native token. Modeled after the Binance initial exchange offering model, up to 300 FLEX token holders will have access to “discount” contracts priced at $75 per DOT.
Former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul says he is in favor of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology because he likes competing currencies. Ron Paul delivered his remarks in a “Squawk Alley” interview on CNBC on July 15.
According to Paul, cryptocurrencies are a great idea, and governments should only step in to regulate the space to prevent fraud:
“… I’m for the least amount of regulation. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to cryptocurrencies. I think it’s a great idea. And I only have one rule: no fraud … I think that the government has a role. And [if] somebody has a case that there is fraud, I think it should be investigated … What I want to do is legalize the freedom of choice, absent blatant fraud.”
ABBC launches Buyaladdin, their online shopping platform, at the Rockefeller Center in NYC.
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yesterday :
Here is the current chart :
We are currently consolidating just upper the major resistance line at 0.24$ while the BTC is having a very nice bounce. It is becoming hard for all the altcoins and STEEM is not better than other and is sometimes even worst. What to say, we have to wait for better days, the market doesn’t really care currently for the altcoin market and I really don’t know how many time it will last like that. Courage and perhaps focus on the BTC if you want do short term trades.
Stocks are hitting record highs right now. All three major indexes surged this week following Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s strong rate cut signals. But even at these elevated levels, it’s still possible to find stocks with significant upside potential for the months ahead. Goldman Sachs analyst Heath Terry has a top-notch reputation when it comes to stock picking.
One stock that Terry believes has more upside is Netflix. After a monster first quarter, Netflix has been stuck in the mud. However, here is what Heath had to say about Netflix.
Streaming giant Netflix is another top stock on Terry’s buy list. With a $460 price target, the analyst is forecasting 23% upside potential for shares.
“We continue to believe Netflix’s investment in content, technology and distribution will continue to drive subscriber growth well above consensus expectations both in the U.S. and internationally,” Terry told investors earlier this year when he added the stock to the firm’s Conviction list.
The market makers are pricing in a $25 move in either direction after earnings later this week. Regardless, the potential levels to pay attention to are the daily supply at $402 and the daily demand at $313.
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.
