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Fall of USD as Global Reserve CurrencyIf you give someone a button to print money, they will press it 1,400 years ago the Roman republic inflated its currency until its empire collapsed USD used to be backed by gold, but that ended in 1971 This allowed governments to print endless money Hyperinflation is just a matter of time The US government learned to overspend and print the difference The debt is now $31 trillion and $100 trillion in liabilities The only way out is printing more money But destroying the savings and hard-earned tax money of citizens Global reserve currencies change every 90 years So, Monetary Switch is inevitable Checkout Venezuela's 2013- mid-2020 Inflation data The paper that is used to print a dollar is not actually worth a dollar. The paper does not have value, it simply represents the value. It is not money because it holds no individual value. To take it a step further, dollars are actually the OPPOSITE of value. Dollars are debt. A dollar is a PROMISE to pay back debt. The U.S. is over a trillion dollars in debt. A trillion is “1” followed by 12 zeros. It’s a thousand billion. A trillion seconds is 32,000 years. A stack of $1 bills would be 68,000 miles high. So how do we pay back such monumental debt? Taxes. It’s painful, but it’s obvious. So, the dollar is the PROMISE of the U.S. government to pay back over a trillion dollars of debt by taxing its citizens. And, to kick you while you are down, the debt is still growing. The dollar is actually debt. That is why the smart rich don’t work for dollars, they work for assets like BTC and GOLD Thank You for Reading. Like and Share!
Education
by FortuneAI
2
BTC - What December Holds HistoricallyHi Traders, Investors and Speculators 📈📉 Ev here. Been trading crypto since 2017 and later got into stocks. I have 3 board exams on financial markets and studied economics from a top tier university for a year. Daytime job - Math Teacher. 👩🏫 In today's analysis, we take a look at Bitcoin over Decembers from the past. Which direction does the price usually go, bullish or bearish ? It's no surprise that it seems to be a near equal amount of months up vs. down. Over the 11 months observed, we notice 6 green Decembers and 5 red Decembers. This makes probability near equal. However, we could take a look at a few other interesting observations: 💭 Highest increase for Bitcoin was +58.92% when the lowest decline was only -33.15% 💭 More often than not, two months of the same color follow 💭 The biggest yearly increase was during December 2012 - December 2013 with a whopping yearly increase of 9,899.19% 💭 The second biggest increase after that was from Dec 2016 - Dec 2017 with +2,681.15% 💭 The biggest yearly decline was from December 2017 - December 2018 with BTCUSD losing -84% The crypto winter that started in December 2018 was one of the worst yet... But with the industry under pressure, could this year be the new record? IF BTCUSDT were to drop to $11 000, that would be a -81% decline from last December. From all the above... Which way do you think the price will go during December 2022 ? _______________________ 📢Follow us here on TradingView for daily updates and trade ideas on crypto , stocks and commodities 💎Hit like & Follow 👍 We thank you for your support ! CryptoCheck
BITSTAMP:BTCUSD
by CryptoCheck-
41
BITCOIN 2022Hello dear traders, I hope you had a nice rest and weekend, currently in a few hours we are starting a new trading week, so let's take a look! BItcoin has been setting the trend for us in the last few months, especially during the Asian session when there were always the highest trading volumes which of course then set the trend. Since last weekends significant weekly trend setting came during the first Asian session of the new week we can now see what this week will be like and if the Asians can give us a clue as to how to direct our trades. Bitcoin overall last year which has been all down has become the most traded over Asian time and the whales there have been sending bitcoin lower for a long time. How next ? I have one simple opinion UNLESS THE FED START PRINTING MONEY AGAIN, THE BEAR MARKET WILL NOT END, WE MAY SEE A SHORT-TERM TREND BUT NOT A BULL MARKET !!! I THINK WE REALLY NEED TO FORGET ABOUT CYCLE ADOPTION AND ALL SUCH FUNDAMENTALS AND ESPECIALLY CHART INDICATORS AND THINK ABOUT WHY EVERYTHING IS PROBABLY DOWN. If we look not far into the past we find that BTC had already reacted to one single thing earlier in the last bearmarket and ran up when the nasty but mighty stop loss hunter Jerome Powell said enough is enough and started printing money again because interest rates were high and people were already going crazy. This tells you very simply that high interest rates do not have an acute negative effect on stock markets, in the past years stocks only started falling when interest rates were already high as they are now and we have been going down for a year! The current problem of the US dollar, that is, the advantage problem it has for cryptocurrencies. consists of a very simple thing and that is quantitative tightening, simplistically, pulling printed money out of the market. IF UGLY POWELL DOESN'T TURN HIS MACHINE ON, THERE WILL BE NO BOTTOM!!
INDEX:BTCUSD
by Crypto-Frantisek
3
We need energy storage…and companies are respondingRecently, the following headline caught my eye: ‘Tesla Supplier Panasonic Plans Additional $4 Billion EV Plant in U.S.’ 1 Even in an environment with significant inflation, and a monetary policy that may continue raising rates for some time, significant capital expenditure continues within the battery space. Panasonic is particularly notable because, in July 2022, it announced a plan to build a roughly $4 billion plant in Kansas. Now, it is announcing another plan for a roughly $4 billion plant in Oklahoma2. The concept of securing certain supply chains globally has been a major theme in 2022, even if it’s been obscured by inflation, US Federal Reserve activities or the possibility of a recession. Semiconductors have been a big focus on that list, but so have the batteries that support the ongoing adoption of electric vehicles. Geopolitics are always in the background of these supply chain considerations. While Panasonic (Japan) and LG Energy Solution Ltd. (South Korea) have made announcements in 2022 about plans to build plants directly in the US, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL)—China’s top electric vehicle (EV) battery maker—has not been able to do the same. There was a plan in place, but US-China tensions have recently intensified, leading to postponement3. Whilst drafting this blog, another headline appeared: ‘Honda, LG Energy Plan $4.4 Billion EV Battery Factory in U.S4.’ It’s certainly an area in focus. Where is EV adoption in the US currently? For the full US market, roughly 6% of new vehicles are electric. In California, this number was 16% in the second quarter of 20225. There is an interesting contrast between California and other states in the US. The European Union (EU) announced that new cars must be free from emissions after 20356. Many of the individual countries had already made similar plans. Norway’s government has a plan to not sell any new petrol or diesel cars from 2025 onwards, and 70% of new cars sold in Norway in 2020 were electric7. The individual states across the US, on the other hand, have not signalled commitments anywhere close to this, at least not yet…with the exception of (you guessed it), California! New regulations applying to new cars, pickup trucks and SUVs would establish annual thresholds for the share of zero-emissions vehicles automakers must sell in the state each year8. 35% in 2026 68% in 2030 100% in 2035 The Clean Air Act of 1970 granted California a waiver to set its own environmental rules, and this allows for stricter standards than other states across the US. Other states can adopt California’s rules. For those following politics9: The Trump Administration in 2019 stripped California of its waiver. Some companies still voluntarily sought to meet California’s stricter standards, but there was a division. The Biden Administration then gave California back its waiver in March 2022, which allowed for these new rules. Depending on the path of US politics, we’ll have to see how the story continues to evolve but, with each passing year, it is doubtful that politicians would be able to fully stop the trend of EV adoption. Maybe it would slow and certain states would hold out, but even the automakers themselves are noting a desire to go fully electric in their production within the coming decades. Hydrogen? One thing we know about hydrogen is that the market loves to ‘hype’ this concept. Even though the full development of an infrastructure that would support use of hydrogen at scale will take years—possibly a lot of years—at the end of 2020 and start of 2021 many of the firms focused on hydrogen had sky-high valuations10. The market wanted to price these firms as though the potential had already been realised, so we know that returns have been much harder to come by in the space in most of 2021 and 2022 so far. Plug Power is one such company and, on 25 August 2022, it agreed to provide 10,950 tonnes per year of liquid green hydrogen starting in 202511. ‘Green hydrogen’ refers to hydrogen that has been produced using renewable, carbon-emission-free energy. If Amazon wants to decarbonise its operations and use hydrogen to do it, it’s important that the production of the hydrogen isn’t simply moving the emission generation from Amazon’s operations toward Amazon’s energy suppliers. Amazon has committed to be net-zero in terms of carbon emissions by 2040. As a rough guide, this amount of hydrogen that Plug Power would supply could power between 1,000 and 2,000 heavy duty trucks over the course of a year12. It is an area of active debate and development regarding the best way to decarbonise heavy-duty trucks: Current lithium-ion battery technology could work, but batteries would be very heavy and the need to stop for charging could prove a challenge on longer-haul trips. Charging massive, semi-truck sized batteries could also take much longer than passenger cars. Hydrogen offers interesting alternative benefits but, currently, the discussion should focus on the supply chain. First, the infrastructure of hydrogen fuelling stations needs to be build out, securing the supply of hydrogen on major routes. Second, the production of hydrogen needs to be green, or else all the companies trying to use hydrogen as part of net-zero emissions plans would have to look elsewhere. Our take on hydrogen for the moment is one of reasonable optimism, recognising the benefits but, at the same time, not getting too excited too quickly. Conclusion: countries want to be energy independent Decades ago, the only way countries could be energy independent was to find massive deposits of oil. While we still use fossil fuels globally, energy independence in the coming decades will likely look quite different, and the countries that secure the best possible energy storage technologies could be in the best position as they deploy all sorts of renewable energy technologies to power their needs. To this end, there are going to be a lot of advances in regulations, energy storage technologies and all the while capital expenditures to build out all sorts of infrastructure and production capability. Sources 1 Source: Davis, River & Rebecca Elliott. “Tesla Supplier Panasonic Plans Additional $4 Billion EV Battery Plant in U.S.” Wall Street Journal. 26 August 2022. 2 Source: Davis, 26 August 2022. 3 Source: Davis, 26 August 2022. 4 Source: Davis, River & Dasl Yoon. “Honda, LG Energy Plan $4.4 Billion EV Battery Factory in U.S.” Wall Street Journal. 29 August 2022. 5 Source: Colias, Mike & Christine Mai-Duc. “California Approves Rules to Ban Gasoline-Powered Cars by 2035.” Wall Street Journal. 25 August 2022. 6 Source: eu-agrees-new-cars-must-be-emissions-free-after-2035 7 Source: statista -electric-and-hybrid-cars 8 Source: Colias, 25 August 2022. 9 Source: Colias, 25 August 2022. 10 Source: Bloomberg. 11 Source: Palumbo, Angela & Al Root. “Plug Power Stock Jumps on Hydrogen Supply Deal with Amazon.” Barron’s. 25 August 2022. 12 Source: Palumbo, 25 August 2022.
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by aneekaguptaWTE
What’s happening in semiconductors? The next chapterWe recently wrote about semiconductors from the perspective of capital spending and government policies aimed towards encouraging further capital spending and ultimately semiconductor independence. However, we’d be remiss to not at least touch on some of the current geopolitics. A simplified look at the semiconductor supply chain If one simplifies a rather complex set of interrelationships across countries, we can see a triangle with three distinct corners1. Foundries: These companies are manufacturing the physical chips. There are not too many individual players, as the capital expenditures to enter this space are extremely high. Additionally, they don’t all have the same capabilities. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is well known for being able to reliably manufacture the most advanced chips in the world. Samsung Electronics, Intel and Global Foundries represent other important players. Intellectual Property Companies: These companies make and sell different layouts and designs. ARM, the company currently owned by SoftBank, is one example with a huge presence across the internet of things (IoT). Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Tools: EDA was only $10 billion in 2021, a small part of the overall $595 billion semiconductor market, but it is essential if chip manufacturers are to determine if a design is feasible prior to production. Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics are the three leading players in this space. Together, they control about 70% of the global market. Behind each of these points on the triangle is a lot of history embedded as experience, and it is important to recognise this since it is what makes it particularly challenging for an outside player—in this case China—to just copy it. The ASML example Lithography is the term used for the practice of etching the appropriate designs on the silicon that allow for the functional operation of the transistors. More transistors spaced more closely together, simply put, means a more efficient and capable chip. Today’s Apple M1 chip contains 16 billion transistors2. The degree of precision engineering required to be able to put 16 billion transistors on something that is not the size of multiple city blocks, much less could fit within a laptop or smartphone, is one of the most impressive feats of human ingenuity that the world has ever seen. The short version of the story is that a company in the Netherlands, ASML, was in a position to take a big risk in the 2000’s—the pursuit of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV). EUV was needed because there needed to be shorter wavelengths of light used to almost shave atom by atom away from the silicon to make the transistors small enough, basically 5-nanometres. This light is generated by flashing a specific type of laser 50,000 times per second at molten tin3. Developing EUV was so capital intensive that only a single company did it: ASML. Components for the machines that do this fill four 747 airplanes and are sourced from specific companies all over the world. Operating the machines at scale requires an incredible depth of experience4. Given the flavour of the topic, you have probably already guessed the geopolitical implications. Some of the components of the EUV machines do come from the United States. Then, there is the relationship between the US government and the government of the Netherlands. As a result of those discussions and where we are presently, EUV machines are not being sent to China. The Nvidia case In August 2022, the US took a further step to limit China’s artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions through further restrictions on the export of very specific semiconductors5: Nvidia will be restricted from selling the A100 graphics processing unit into China, Hong Kong and Russia Nvidia will also be restricted from selling its forthcoming H100 series of graphics chips into these same markets users of the A100 include Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu—the companies that provide some of China’s largest cloud computing infrastructure Nvidia is the most visible company with respect to these types of chips, and as of this writing it had the largest market cap amongst the semiconductor companies. It would not surprise us if other firms that have chips of similar types of capabilities could be named in the future. Conclusion: Can China ‘go it alone’? We might take a step back at this point and think, wait, China has massive resources. Why don’t they just make their own chips? We don’t discount the fact that China absolutely could make its own chips, but it would be more a question of how long it would take and how advanced those chips could be. The EUV process was something that took both massive investment and about 20 years. ASML is able to manufacture the machines that it does and support companies like TSMC operating at scale because they have the benefit of learning from all the mistakes along the way. China can certainly make efforts along the path, but simply spending money is not going to lead to an effective EUV process that can manufacture the most cutting-edge chips at scale—the key being ‘at scale without a high defect rate.’ During the four years ended 2024, China is slated to complete 31 major semiconductor factors. By 2025, 40% of the world’s capacity to produce chips with 28-nanometre nodes is expected to be in China6. This tells us that China is making big investments away from the absolute cutting edge—and we have to remember that the world does need those chips as well. It will be very difficult for any country to fully take in all aspects of the semiconductor supply chain, but we are seeing notable efforts to that end in 2022 that will likely continue. Sources 1 Source: Yang, Zeyi. “Inside the software that will become the next battle front in US-China chip war.” MIT Technology Review. 18 August 2022 2 Source: Wikipedia Apple 3 Source: Thompson, Clive. “Inside the Most Complicated Machine on the Planet.” MIT Technology Review. Volume 124, Number 6, November/December 2021 4 Source: Thompson, November/December 2021 5 Source: Lin, Liza & Dan Strumpf. “Latest U.S. Chip Curbs Deliver Setback to China’s AI Ambitions.” Wall Street Journal. 1 September 2022 6 Source: Strumpf, Dan & Liza Lin. “China Bets Big on Basic Chips in Self-Sufficiency Push.” Wall Street Journal. 24 July 2022
NASDAQ:SOX
by aneekaguptaWTE
1
Recycling Batteries will be a Big Focus in the Energy TransitionThose of us following the markets in 2022 have tended to hear certain words again and again: Supply chains Energy shortage Inflation Renewable energy metals We need energy. We want to transition from significant emissions of greenhouse gases towards more sustainable, climate-neutral sources of energy. It is difficult to foresee the demand for batteries dropping at any point in the near future. But, there is a problem. Redwood Materials, a company that is focusing on battery recycling, articulates it very clearly in the title of Figure 1 and then in their infographic. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the fact that many things have built towards highly globalised supply chains. Batteries are a critical example, and securing supply is a topic that many regions are thinking about today. A circular economy? Intuitively, recycling battery metals makes a lot of sense. Instead of constantly sourcing more raw nickel, cobalt, lithium etc., it would be more efficient to make use of the existing stock of metals already in use in various physical products. The map in Figure 1 also makes another important point—the specific metals used in the manufacture of batteries are not evenly dispersed across the globe. Certain countries and regions have copious amounts, while others don’t have any. It may be the case that we are early, and this is sometimes an issue in thematic equity investing. The concept and idea might be clear but getting the timing of the possible take-off can be tricky. It is simple to picture the idea of electric vehicles (EVs) ending their useful lives and heading to the scrap yard, like any other vehicle. However, we are still early in terms of EV adoption, so we don’t have EVs at scale heading to the scrap yard at the end of their usable lives. That day will come, but not immediately. This is important to understand, in that it tells us that the materials being recycled are not expected to be the actual batteries that were used for multiple years in an EV. Rather, the inputs into recycling will likely be scrap material from the increasing number of gigafactories coming online. This scrap could account for 78% of the pool of recyclable materials in 20251. It is then estimated that in the mid 2030’s, end-of-life batteries will supersede scrap materials from factories, but extracting the valuable lithium, cobalt, nickel and other metals from existing end-of-life batteries will be a more involved process than processing scrap metals from factories2. Geopolitics may offer a natural push towards recycling firms In 2022, when one is trying to analyse the possible forward path of the relationship between certain countries (for example, US vs China) it is very difficult to know what might happen. China is the major processor of some of the most important battery metals (see Figure 2), which will likely be a major source of tension for Western countries. Based on what we can see today, we have to imagine that Western countries would prefer a greater independence of supply away from a dependence on China if that can be a reasonable possibility. Conclusion: recent activities show companies making moves on this front Ascend Elements is a start-up that is aiming to be an emerging centre of battery production in the Southeastern US. Jaguar Land Rover and SK Group have contributed, along with other investors, to put $300 million into the firm. It is seeking to commercialise an efficient method, termed ‘hydro-to-cathode’, to turn used lithium-ion batteries into new components. As of the recent funding, Ascend Elements is valued at $500 million3. The Inflation Reduction Act is also notable, in that it focuses on defining how much battery material is coming from domestic production. ‘Domestic’ in this context means ‘inside the US.’ This creates an immediate incentive for recycling players to ramp up their production and operations in the US, as it would then connect electric-car tax credits for consumers back to batteries that are at least majority-sourced from inside the US4. The primary risk in the space appears to be whether the recyclers can effectively achieve a scale of their operations to bring down unit costs and allow for strong financial performance before waves and waves of existing EV batteries start getting retired. Even if batteries from laptops and smartphones are recycled, it may not be enough material to scale operations and allow the companies to progress towards profitability5. WisdomTree believes in the importance of the global energy transition, of which battery recycling is certainly a part that can grow over time. Diversification across the supply chain may mitigate the risk of being a bit early to certain parts of the picture.
G
by aneekaguptaWTE
AMD ~ Heavy Demand Area AMD, the semiconductor leader, and monstrous Tech Company has taken a very big hit on its stock in the past 12 months. AMD Has issued guidance worries on demand woes and earlier, supply woes. No matter these shorter-term issues that are going on within AMD, and in the Macro-Outlook of the Economy, AMD is attracting and will be attracting many buyers at these much more fair-valued prices. As AMD has continued to fall it has hit a significant Trendline that has acted as strong support for the past year's downtrend. Along with this trendline tap, AMD continues to enter a major demand zone from pre-covid levels. The High $40s to $60 will remain a very demand-heavy spot for AMD as many buyers step in. Long Term buyers and bounce Buyers are anticipating for a bounce off these trendlines, and possibly a bottom near this solid demand zone. AMD's p/e ratio has fallen dramatically to around 20, resigning a fair price to the company's stock rather than the high $100s. Many Buyers will be seeing value at this price. My thesis is that this can be a smart Long-Term Entry for scale-ins on the company's stock. Buying at these demand levels will carry lower risk/reward with AMD reaching fair value, and a huge demand zone. I personally believe years out, this is a perfect acquiring zone to start!
NASDAQ:AMDLong
by ZachSap
4