Microsoft licenses its operating systems to manufacturers of computers back in the day. Today, the name Microsoft is synonymous with PCs and laptops. Just like Microsoft is synonymous with PCs and laptops, Roku is synonymous with smart TVs.
Roku was founded in 2002 is taking advantage of the cord cutting trend. According to Roku’s most recent shareholders’ letter, “roughly 50% of U.S. cord cutters are Roku customers.
Roku offers an easy way to access all the top streaming services. Roku estimates that more than a third of all smart TVs sold in the U.S. have Roku’s operating system built in. The list right now includes TCL, Insignia, Sharp, Hisense, Hitachi, RCA and Philips. Roku’s free channel has also secured a partnership with Samsung.
Roku is well-positioned for the streaming war. As the streaming war rages between Netflix NFLX, Amazon AMZN, Disney DIS and others and more people spend more time streaming their favorite shows on more services, Roku makes more money. So no matter which streaming service comes out on top, Roku should benefit.
It’s the reason why Roku was up as much as 400% this year at one point. In just under a year, Roku went from a small/mid cap stock to a large-cap. The firm’s sales growth has been accelerating with year-over-year growth of more than 50% for the past 3 quarters. In addition, Roku just reported its 8th straight top and bottom-line earnings beat. However, on the news the stock sold off. Wall Street will tell you their valuation got to rich, but a month ago I talked about where the chart suggested the Sellers were.
Although I thought the weekly demand would have been a better buy, price reacted to the monthly demand at $95. Thus, the chart suggests price will rise to the daily supply at $148.
It’s not a coincident, price sold off at the daily supply at $148, the news just served as a catalysts. Just another example of why the Markets are not random.
So where does Roku go from here?
Highlighting how well the company is monetizing its platform, Roku’s average revenue per user over the trailing 12 months is 40% higher than Netflix’s most expensive streaming plan. What’s particularly surprising, however, is that current trends indicate there’s still plenty of upside left for this metric to move even higher.
In Roku’s third-quarter update, management said its ARPU was $22.58. With 32.3 million active accounts (1.7 million of which were added in Q3 alone), this robust ARPU has helped Roku deliver $633 million in trailing-12-month platform revenue.
While Roku does benefit from subscriptions to third-party streaming services on its platform, advertising is the company’s most important growth driver. In fact, monetized ad inventory on its platform more than doubled year over year in Q3 — a trend that has been consistent with recent quarters.
Looking ahead, Roku believes this is just the beginning when it comes to advertising spending on its platform. Only 3% of TV advertising budgets are currently spent on connected TV, yet connected TV accounts for 29% of U.S. viewing, Roku’s general manager of platform business, Scott Rosenberg, noted in Roku’s third-quarter earnings call, citing research firm Magna Global.
Fossil Group, Inc. designs, develops, markets, and distributes consumer fashion accessories in the United States, Europe, Asia, and internationally. Its principal products include men’s and women’s fashion watches and jewelry, smartwatches, handbags, small leather goods, belts, and sunglasses.
Although Fossil sales other things beside watches, their bread and butter and what they are known for are their watches. However, watches are a tough business these days in the era of smartwatches.
Thus, Fossil has been expanding its smartwatches and wearable portfolio. This holiday season, Fossil is selling their most advanced hybrid smartwatch, featuring text messages, alerts, caller ID, heart rate and activity tracking and a two-week battery life, but the smartwatch market continues to be dominated by Apple.
Fossil reported earnings this past week. The stock tanked after a surprise quarterly loss and said its sales fell 11%. Fossil said it lost $26 million, or 51 cents a share, in the third quarter, versus earnings of $5 million, or 10 cents a share, in the third quarter of 2018. Sales also declined to $539.5 million from $609 million.
Among the challenges that Chief Executive Kosta Kartsotis outlined on the earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript: a tough consumer environment, difficult sales trends at wholesale channels in developed markets, and lack of interest in traditional watches. “Based on these factors, we’ve lowered our sales expectations for Q4,” he said. “[G]iven the trends we saw in the third quarter, we think it’s prudent to plan our sales number assuming these trends don’t change near term.
Earlier this year, Fossil announced that they were sell technology related to its high-end watches to Google. Google paid $40 million to Fossil in exchange for intellectual property needed to make the watches.
Fitbit was the pioneer in fitness trackers and was doing well, that until the smartwatches were also able to track fitness activities. And at the point this was the beginning of the end for Fitbit. And after years of struggling and trying to remain relevant, they finally waved the white flag and sold to Google. Google was seen as a potential suitor for Fitbit prior to the deal announcement, as the two companies struck a partnership last year and have vested interests in the health space.
So why would Google buy Fossil. Googles mission for its Wear OS is to create “a diverse set of devices” for their smartwatch platform. Fossil owns and licenses 14 brands, including popular names like Kate Spade, Michael Kors, Armani, DKNY, and Diesel. Each of these brands already have their own Wear OS watch in its own signature style. Thus, buying Fossil would be in alignment with Googles mission for Wear OS.
If Google is going to buy Fossil, the chart suggest, to wait for price to hit the monthly demand at $5, which would represent a 44% discount from the current price.
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.
Probably not a week that saw your portfolio increase in value. Bearish short-term outlook seems confirmed but the reasons to hold crypto remain as strong as ever. Having said that should the markets in general drop steeply (in the short to medium term) crypto will follow – better to be aware of this ‘reality’ and plan accordingly. It bears repeating – this is a long-term play – the cryptos that survive and eventually thrive will bring great reward to ‘early’ investors but this is over a multi-year horizon (closer to 2030 than 2020). If it’s life-changing wealth you pursue – only a realistic time frame will get you there.
Picks of the Week
Twitter this week was a literal treasure trove of crypto themes, narratives, analysis and discussions. Just a few examples being – Bitcoin as a religious journey, a critique of the stock to flow model, Altcoins as Oscillators or Degenerators, and a brief analysis of BTC where price equals difficulty.
In addition, this by Crypto Daily is essential viewing for those looking to understand the current ‘context’ of the cryptosphere.
Undoubtedly Crypto Daily’s finest work to date -despite the light-hearted delivery this is a must-watch for folks with a long-term interest in crypto (highly recommended):
Discussing BTC’s supply/fee model (recommended):
A BTC prediction for 2020:
Colin continues his stellar work on EOS governance reform:
The Crypto Lark discusses Ray Dalio’s assessment of the current state of the financial system:
While price may have disappointed – the space as an environment I which to learn certainly did not! As always, looking forward to your comments and suggestions.
Note on Sources:
Twitter & Reddit (cryptos current meta-brains) / Medium / Trybe / Hackernoon / Whaleshares / TIMM and so on/ YouTube / various podcasts and whatever else I stumble upon. The aim is a useful weekly aggregator of ideas rather than news. Though I try to keep the sources current – I’ll reference these articles and podcasts etc. as I encounter them – they may have been published just a couple of days ago or in some cases quite a bit earlier.
Rental prices have seen aggressive growth over the past five years, but the gas tank may finally be getting low with prices over the past year growing half as much as recent years.
Raising Rents as an Investment Strategy May Get Difficult
A lot of this is market dependent and growth could certainly kick up again, but the rates have been steadily strong prior to this year so it’s worth keeping an eye on this data going forward and adjusting strategy if needed.
Nationwide Rate
As a whole rental prices increased 1.4% year over year, according to apartmentlist.com data, while the month over month change for October was 0.1%.
Picking Growing Markets Is Important
Many real estate investors in recent years, especially those doing large multifamily deals have used a strategy of acquiring under performing properties, sprucing them up and raising rents as units are turned over.
Then, with the cap rate higher due to the increased rents they can refinance out of an original loan and pull a good chunk of equity or just sell outright for a profit.
It is a solid strategy, but we can’t just blindly assume higher rents will be supported indefinitely. Capital improvements will help attract higher rents, but in the end the market dictates the ultimate cap regardless of how nice a place is.
This is why it is imperative to pick strong growing markets. That doesn’t just mean in rental prices, it means a growing population with increasing job opportunities.
That will help provide the market growth needed, but will also hold up the best if we hit a period of stagnation in the future.
Growing vs. Shrinking
Here is a glimpse at some states with the best and worst year over year growth.
Arizona: 3.5% growth
North Dakota: 2.9% growth
North Carolina: 2.7% growth
Nevada: 2.6% growth
Delaware: 2.4% growth
Rental prices falling:
West Virginia: -0.8% growth
Louisiana: -0.6% growth
Alaska: -0.3% growth
No Red Flags, but Pay Mind
As you can see there are some leaders and some laggards of the 1.4% national average.
The good news is we still have growth in rental prices, the bad news is growth has slowed a considerable amount over the past year.
Again, it is data worth watching, especially for those with the business model of aggressively raising rents on new projects as growth projections may not keep pace compared to recent years.
ONE seen from the temporality of 1W we can observe how the price has realized a correct retest of the monthly support located in the 0.00511 where the price has found bullish impulse for the testing of the high range located in the 0.00610, we see how the price has formed within the smaller figure an upward triangle indicated in the chart above by the dark blue diagonal, if the price achieves the close above the weekly bid, the probabilities of a much larger bullish move are very high, our first profit target is located within the price range of 0.00814 – 0.00935, this target could be easily achievable once the price achieves the close above the resistance.
ONE seen from the temporality of 1D we can observe more closely the current movement of candles where we see a marked pattern of double floor as a signal of reversal of trend, as I mentioned in previous analysis, this is a pattern that many other USDT pairs are forming as a bullish signal of the last movement of BTC, in the chart above we can see the test that the price has made in the high range located at 0.00642, the price should find the necessary push for a continuation bullish within the zone of demand in 1D located within the price range of 0.00539 – 0.00580, indicated in the chart above by the light blue rectangle, for now we have a closing of the diagonal drop in 1D that we can observe through the diagonal dark blue, the price still does not make the test, so we must be very attentive in 4H.
In conclusion, ONE presents an excellent bullish movement after having found support at 0.00511, this has motivated the formation of a bullish pattern that should conclude with a continuation of the movement towards our first profit target located within the price range of 0.00814 – 0.00935, our second profit target is located within the price range of 0.01124 – 0.01212, for this to happen we need a weekly closing candle above 0.00610, therefore, I recommend to be very attentive to the price action in 1D to choose the best position and always remember to place your stop loss to avoid possible invalidations during the movement.
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.
Barrick Gold Corporation explores for and develops mineral properties. The company primarily explores for gold, copper, and silver deposits.
According to Oilprice.com Barrick Gold Corp is one of most promising gold miners in 2020. Barrick Gold made headlines earlier this year when they attempted to acquire Newmont Mining which would of created the world’s largest gold producer. Barrick wanted Newmont Mining because of their adjoining assets in Nevada.
Needless to say, Barrick eventually pulled its $18 billion offer for Newmont Mining Corp and agreed to form a joint venture in Nevada with Newmont Mining.
The world’s second largest gold producer reported earnings yesterday and said it would be at the top end of its production targets for the year and the lower end of cost estimates.
Thanks to the rise in gold prices over the last year and gold production increasing to 1.31 million ounces from 1.15 million ounces over the last 12 months, profits rose to $264 million, or 15 cents per share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, from $89 million, or 8 cents per share, a year earlier.
And if that news wasn’t good enough, Barrick also announced that its Board of Directors declared a dividend for the third quarter of 2019 of $0.05 per share, a 25% increase on the previous quarter’s dividend.
Although the Newmont Mining deal didn’t materialize, Barrick’s late founder Peter Munk vision of building the world’s largest gold producer remains on the table. The latest talk on the Street is now combining with Freeport-McMoran.
Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) engages in the mining of mineral properties in the United States, Indonesia, Peru, and Chile. The company primarily explores for copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, and other metals, as well as oil and gas.
Barrick Gold Corp.’s chief said there’s a logic to combining with Freeport-McMoran Inc. as a way to expand into copper, but isn’t committing to any deals yet.
A tie-up with Freeport could bolster Barrick’s U.S. presence, where it already operates gold mines in Nevada, said Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow, who cautioned that it’s not something currently being considered.
“Everyone has been fingered as a potential suitor of Freeport,” said Bristow, when asked if he was interested in a combination. “There’s a bit of work for us to do before we can get our head around broadening our scope.”
In general, the mining stocks do better than gold when the price of the metal rallies. Although gold prices have pulled back, I think it’s just part of any normal uptrend, in the cause of gold, a longer term uptrend that started in late 2018.
So where is the price of Barrick headed next, lets go to the charts go to long on the pull back to the weekly demand at $15.30 with a target right before the weekly supply zone.
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.
Please click the link to listen to the 61st 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.
Welcome to Two Minute Crypto. This week’s episode examines the key concept of ownership or possession (the same thing) in the cryptocurrency space.
If you’ve spent any time at all focused on cryptocurrencies then you’ve very likely encountered the statement, ‘Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto.’ However, this truth bears repeating, reflection and if necessary, action.
A Few Caveats
If you only have a small position in crypto amounting to less than 1% of your liquid net worth then parking it on an exchange doesn’t really matter.
In addition, if you are a frequent trader a certain percentage of your assets are inevitably going to be locked up in orders and open positions. Of course, if that’s more than roughly 10-15% of your trading account -you’re exposing yourself to unnecessary counter-party risk.
Also, if you are not currently tech-savvy enough to move your funds off an exchange – take some time, seek some help and move your crypto as soon as you are comfortable doing so (the sooner the better).
‘Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto.’
Getting your hands on crypto is rarely easy, it is a friction-rich experience. There are many steps to take before you can even claim to own any cryptocurrency. Research, signing up to an exchange, going through KYC, learning to navigate an order book, setting up a wallet, backing up that wallet, sending your first transaction, trying not to freak out when you see the words ‘unconfirmed’ and on and on it goes.
Many people seem to make it only as far as an exchange. They buy but don’t take possession. While this takes some of the friction out of the user experience, it also critically undermines the whole appeal of crypto. To be absolutely clear – the cryptocurrency on an exchange is not under your control – it is simply an IOU by a third party. The balances you see are entirely under their jurisdiction. Indeed, your very access to those balances is something they may choose to cut off if, and when, the exchange deems it in their own interest to do so.
At any time, their circumstances may change – they may go out of business, be hacked, simply exit scam you, or be shut-down by some regulatory authority. Were any of these to occur you are likely out of luck. Sure, large exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase are more robust than their lesser peers but the fundamental reality of the IOU nature of their relationship with their customers remains the same.
This helplessness is highly ironic given the incredible freedom possession of an asset like Bitcoin imparts. You are essentially forfeiting the trustless, uncensorable quality of BTC for what exactly….oh yeah the false comfort of a third party holding your asset for you…like a bank might do…except crypto exchanges are much more unstable than even their banking counterparts…here today, gone tomorrow.
Not your keys, Not your crypto. Not simply a slogan but a fact.
There was this huge base at $2.00 on the monthly chart going back 18 years. In September, I noticed a monthly hammer candle had formed in August. If you are aware of the common candle stick patterns, a hammer candle usually occurs at the bottom of a down trend. However, what confirmed the end of the downtrend was on the daily chart, price has formed a demand zone, on top of a demand zone. I call a zone on top of a zone, a level on level and is one of the most powerful formation when trading supply and demand zones. Thus, the chart suggest to go long a pull back to the daily demand levels and go long with a target at $2.700.
Please note, there are typically two seasons for the U.S. gas market: Summer (April-Oct) and Winter (November-March). Gas is injected into the ground in Summer and gas is withdrawn in Winter to meet demand that rises well above production. Please note, today is November 6th.
Natural gas prices surged higher on Monday climbing nearly 4% after rising 5.25% for the week. Short-covering by funds should continue. The weather is expected to remain cooler than normal through most of the eastern portion of the United States over the next 6-10 and 8-14 days.
Hedge fund traders reduced some of their short position in futures and options and added to longs, but remain exposed to a short-squeeze. According to the most recent commitment of trader’s report released for the date ending October 29, 2019 managed money reduced short position in futures and options by 21.5K contracts while increasing long positions in futures and options by 11K contracts. The current net short position at 299K contracts is nearly 3X the open interest that is short futures and options, providing the backdrop for a short-squeeze.
Overall, the Smart Money is still net short natural gas, but are being forced to recover the positions due to being short squeezed. In this case, the short squeeze is occurring because of the excess in demand for the contract and lack of sellers. Since price has moved up rapidly, the short sellers are covering to preserve some of their gains and/or cap their losses, resulting in additional buying, which is causing price to move higher.
So where are prices headed next, the chart suggests price is heading to the weekly supply at $3.100.
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.
Santander Consumer is one of the largest subprime auto lenders in the market. Delinquencies for auto loans in general, including both prime and subprime, have reached their highest levels this year since 2011.
Santander Consumer had $26.3 billion of subprime auto loans as of June 30 that it either owned, or bundled into bonds, According to a report from S&P Global Ratings, Santander Consumer has more than $25 billion in subprime auto loans which is almost 50% of the company’s total managed loans.
Today, I want to introduce another auto lender, Credit Acceptance Corporation
Credit Acceptance Corporation provides financing programs, and related products and services to independent and franchised automobile dealers in the United States. The company advances money to dealers in exchange for the right to service the underlying consumer loans; and buys the consumer loans from the dealers and keeps various amounts collected from the consumers.
Don Foss is known as the pioneer of the subprime auto loan market. Back in the days, General Motors and Ford would only lend money to folks with good credit. So Don started selling cars on credit to people with shaky finances. Don was charging customers crazy high interest rates and could because nobody else was issuing loans to this particular population with bad credit. So in 1972, Foss founded Credit Acceptance (CACC) to handle financing and debt collection for his used car business. Today, CACC is a major player in the U.S. subprime auto loan market and its market cap is a little under $8 billion.
Credit Acceptance Corporation’s CACC third-quarter 2019 earnings of $8.73 per share missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $9.13. However, the bottom line was up 12.6% year over year.
Provision for credit losses increased 37.9% from the year-ago quarter to $19.3 million. Moreover, allowance for credit losses at the end of the third quarter was $509.1 million, up from $461.9 million as of Dec 31, 2018.
Credit Acceptance is well poised for growth in revenues, given the continued rise in consumer loans. However, persistently increasing expenses and deteriorating asset quality are near-term concerns.
So as the economy slows, companies hire less and layoff more, customers’ confidence decline, the more sub-prime auto loans default. And when this chain reaction fully materializes, CACC’s stock will crash.
At the moment, there is a nice band of support/resistance at the $450 level.
However, because this band of support/resistance was breached last month, the chart suggests to short price at the weekly supply at $460.
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.
Today I would like to do a fun little exercise. Well, I think it’s fun because I’m a crypto lover. If you don’t like crypto, then you should probably stay well clear of my blog!
I spoke about the silliness of altcoin bashing last week, so I’m not going to delve into that again. Suffice to say: I believe in the cyclic nature of markets, and that altcoins will rise again. There ARE signs that that rise has started (meaning that altcoins have bottomed), but that has yet to be confirmed.
For today’s exercise I’m going to look at the following hypothetical situation:
Say I put $100 into the top 20 altcoins. What would they all be worth if they then got back to their All Time Highs?
I will be using the CoinGecko top 20. I know that most people prefer CMC, but I like the added functionality that CoinGecko offers. For example: with CoinGecko I can easily see how far each coin is from its All Time High (ATH).
From https://www.coingecko.com/en?view=all_time_high
Below is a table which I constructed to display those figures. Remember, in each case we are investing $100 at current prices, and then seeing what will happen if that coin gets back to its ATH.
1
BTC
$214,59
2
ETH
$800,00
3
XRP
$1 162,79
4
BCH
$1 315,79
5
USDT
$132,28
6
LTC
$613,50
7
EOS
$694,44
8
BNB
$194,17
9
BSV
$199,20
10
XLM
$1 265,82
11
ADA
$2 857,14
12
TRX
$1 219,51
13
XMR
$862,07
14
LEO
$200,80
15
OKB
$168,07
16
LINK
$168,92
17
HT
$156,99
18
ATOM
$206,19
19
NEO
$1 785,71
20
IOTA
$1 960,78
It’s true that one shouldn’t read too much into this: the playing field is not entirely level (for reasons such as some coins only being launched after the peak of the bull market). But what it does serve as is a semi-standardised benchmark indicator of potential ROI.
Yes, we all know that BTC is safer than altcoins, but I personally believe in chasing some higher potential ROI at the expense of a little more risk, and even a little bit of extreme ROI at the expense of massive risk. Note: being the top 20 coins, this table does not represent the “massive risk” section of the market – well….. that’s debatable, we’ll get back to that shortly.
Those are the numbers, the raw stats. Let’s now dig into them a little deeper:
At a mere $214.59 return on a $100 investment, BTC looks positively pedestrian when compared to the average – and it is. This is the entire point of investing in altcoins instead of in BTC, that and helping many small projects to become part of our everyday lives – thereby greatly enhancing them.
However, and this applies to all the coins, these returns are only to get back to ATH. They do not include further market growth beyond that point! Only the staunchest bears would believe that BTC has already reached its ultimate ATH. Another term for such people is “idiots who should be ignored”. As the ultimate crypto store of value, I believe that every portfolio should have BTC in it. I would consider 10-20% to be a good figure, though that is largely down to personal taste (and my own percentage is way outside that bracket at the moment!)
Moving lower down the table we see ETH returning $800. Wow, that’s really not a bad potential investment! Ethereum remains the biggest and most popular crypto platform by far, and it is really the only one with many high quality DApps already running on it. No, your 100 casino DApps on your favourite chain are not “high quality”. Even NEO – and you all know how much I love NEO – can boast only a small handful of good DApps at this stage. But Ethereum has hundreds of them, even if it is also packed full of trash coins which should, and probably will, die. The ETH team is also still very active and the platform continues to be developed, albeit that it misses target dates almost as badly as Cardano does! In summary, Ether is a fairly secure investment with possibly much higher returns than what BTC can offer.
You all know my feelings on Ripple. I mean XRP. I mean Ripple. Apparently XRP is Ripple when Ripple does good things such as forming major partnerships; but XRP is not Ripple when Ripple is criticised for e.g. being centralised or being a company full of ex-bankers. Oh how I hate Ripple and everything it stands for! BUT: like most dodgy investments, Ripple still has a LOT of support. I do not doubt that Ripple will once again see very good returns when the market runs. However, I could never condone investing in such centralised, anti-Satoshi rubbish – so if you want to hold Ripple, then you will be doing so without my support! The returns you may get on Ripple are better than those of ETH, but I would chose to put my money on ETH instead!
BCH and LTC remain viable alternatives to BTC, especially for smaller transactions. I believe that there is a strong future for such coins, a future in which BTC is the store of value, and such coins (you can add DASH, NANO etc to the mix) become the de facto mediums of exchange. It is interesting that BCH offers far higher returns than LTC when looking at their respective ATHs. I surmise that this may be because people once perceived BCH as possible legitimate competition for BTC, whereas LTC was only ever a coin that worked alongside BTC. The two coins are pretty even in my eyes.
Note Tether sitting between BCH and LTC, with a possible return of $132.28! I find that rather amusing!
At $694.44 EOS is not looking as good as ETH. This should serve as a mild warning to EOS investors. I have long said that EOS is good, but over-hyped. I stand by that statement.
At $194.17, BNB is deceptive. As far as exchanges go, Binance is by far the most well known. Crucially, its ROI to ATH is less than that of BTC, which on its own should make the decision to buy BTC instead of BNB a simple one. But BNB is a special case, and I caution against writing it off. While my favourite exchange is KuCoin (and its KCS token), I can not ignore the fact that Binance is also launching programs, projects and platforms left, right and centre. It’s very popular and I have great faith in its CEO. CZ has a brilliant mind and a comprehensive understanding of blockchain technology, business principles, international affairs and also a general sense of what a powerful agent of positive change cryptocurrencies can become.
I assess that if any blockchain company can become the next “Amazon”, “Google” or “Microsoft”, then Binance has the best chance of being that company. It is even possible that as other cryptocurrencies grow, so Binance may one day pass even BTC in terms of market cap! Don’t laugh, just think about it…
BSV is a joke, as is Mr I-did-not-pay-now-I’m-back-in-court Faketoshi. It is sad that such people even exist, they are an ugly scar on the beautiful face of crypto. ‘Nuff said.
Of the top 10 coins, XLM offers the second best potential returns (after BCH) on its climb back to ATH. Personally I consider it a little over-valued, but I far prefer it to its greatly overvalued and far more dodgy cousin XRP.
With the best potential returns of the lot (an incredible $2857.14 for a $100 investment) ADA does look like a prime choice! However, I urge you to remember what I have often said: that US investors are too fixated on US crypto in general, and also that ADA is way behind where it should be: many promises, no deliveries. Other platform coins have since moved far past it, even if market cap has yet to catch up to that fact.
At $1219.51 for $100, TRX is looking strong! It’s not that high up that you would expect it to fall down the market cap ladder, the potential returns look good and Tron is a good product. True, like most of the platforms, it also lacks a large number of good DApps – but those will probably come with time. Justin Sun is a dynamic young entrepreneur with enviable levels of charisma, I think there is a high chance that he will lead Tron to success.
XMR has been quiet lately, which is not always a good sign. But I still see Riccardo Spagni on every episode of “Magical Crypto Friends” and he still seems enthusiastic. While they still have issues to iron out, Monero remains the biggest name in privacy coins, and that is NOT something to ignore! A potential return of $862,07 to ATH is only slightly better than that of ETH, but one could argue strongly in favour of privacy coins, based on the way that crypto regulations are going. With exchanges blocking ZCash (which I no longer endorse), it is clear that privacy coins are a threat to the financial centres of the world. If they do succeed, then XMR may well be the most successful of them all.
LEO has a relatively low potential return (very similar to that of BTC), easily explained because it is so new. However, it is the coin of BitFinex, and I have no love for that exchange. I’m still waiting for the whole dodgy BitFinex/Tether monster to come tumbling down. I’m happy to have closed my account there a long time ago, and I have no intention of having anything further to do with that exchange. I suggest avoiding it.
OKB is the coin of another big exchange, though honestly it isn’t one of my favourites and there are other exchange coins which I would much rather hold. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it though, and like LEO, its price is not reflective of it’s potential, because it was only launched after the demise of the 2017/18 bull run.
To an impartial outside observer, the LINK figure of $168.92 should be very troubling! I keep saying that LINK is way too hyped at the moment. It’s possibly the most over-hyped cryptocurrency of all (at the moment). LINK is not a new coin and it’s not even a special coin in any way. Investors should be very worried that it is hovering so close to its ATH figure. I like LINK, but I would NOT buy it now!
HT is almost identical to OKB for the purpose of this post. I wouldn’t put money there.
ATOM has low returns back up to ATH. But Cosmos has been around since 2014 so it… wait. What’s that you say? Cosmos is a new coin? Oh yes, you’re right. Cosmos is a 2019 coin which (to me) looks remarkably similar to Blocknet (BLOCK) – a coin which has been around since 2014. Why is that relevant? Because BLOCK has a market cap that is more than 130 times smaller than that of very similar Cosmos. What does that mean? It means that ATOM is all new coin hype. No thanks.
NEO’s looking solid with a potential return of $1785.71 for its $100. It’s well known how much I love NEO, and with the current blockchain developments in China (which I have been predicting since the China FUD in 2017), I love it more than ever.
IOTA is a dark (and largely forgotten) horse, sitting at the bottom of the list, but with a figure of $1960.78 per $100 should it make it back to ATH. That’s the second highest in the table, and should not be ignored. I know there have been some criticisms of it, but I honestly haven’t looked deep enough into IOTA lately to know if they are valid or not. As with everything in crypto – you should do your own research.
Conclusion
I believe that good altcoins (note: GOOD altcoins) stand to provide much better returns than Bitcoin will in the near future. Of course with the chance of greater returns comes greater risk. How much risk you are willing to expose yourself to will depend largely on your investing style and current financial situation – I recommend being safe rather than sorry. Having said that, the mere fact that somebody chooses to invest in crypto indicates that they probably have a pioneering spirit (it’s still early days for crypto) and personally I already see BTC as a minor “risk”. If BTC works, then it’s logical that altcoins should work too, thus I invest a decent amount of money in them. As of yesterday, 43.2% of my crypto portfolio is in Bitcoin, which is actually almost the highest percentage it has ever been, a consequence of me holding my alts through the bear market.
I continue to invest slowly and carefully, some in BTC, some in altcoins (though I also keep missing the dips!). In the long-term I believe that altcoin investors will be richly rewarded, and I will continue to invest accordingly. Remember that the table above only deals with the top 20, there are many more coins out there. I suggest that people do their best to make decisions based on facts as opposed to emotional attachment. Crypto is often a sentiment game, but sentiment can’t keep a coin going indefinitely.
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 summary, Ether is a fairly secure investment with possibly much higher returns than what BTC can offer.
