EMERGENCY PRESS CONFERENCE!

Well all hell broke loose pretty much as soon as I pressed 'send' on my last post. I had that post done Monday night but I was planning on adding a little bit to the end on Tuesday morning. Then the market just fell off a cliff so I put it out there before I'd have to delete the whole thing. The theme of my last post and the big question on everyone's mind right now is 'is the bottom in?' Was 19k the bottom and we go sideways then up from here? And the answer to that question was a resounding NO. Bitcoin dropped from 21k all the way down to about 15.5k is just three days. It has since rebounded a little bit and is now hovering around 17k. So my sells all look pretty good and I was able to get back in at 17 and 18k. I didn't quite hit the exact bottom but close. Matic actually dropped all the way to exactly .83, my exact target buy, and then shot back up to a dollar and change. But I freaking missed it. It played out almost exactly as I predicted but I was buying the bitcoin and LINK dip so hard, I didn't have any powder at the moment to scoop up anymore Matic. Very, very mad at myself. I'm very slowly trying to have a little bit more trust and confidence in my convictions but this was just a flat out miss. I think now is an absolute terrific time to at least start buying bitcoin, but to be fair I thought that at 30k too so who knows.

I did say two posts ago that I expected one more leg down for BTC. Was this it? To be honest, I don't think so. I think there's still some room to go but I think we're close. All the metrics I've seen suggest we usually drop about 83% in ROI from the latest peak and I think we're at right about 80%. I think 14k might be the bottom but I wouldn't be shocked if it went as low as 10k. If it goes under 8k I'll still be buying but that would be quite uncomfortable.

I think ethereum is going to crash even harder. It's been way north if its regression band for a while (Ben Cowen on youtube) and I think we're going to see some really cheap prices on ETH in the next 6 months or so. I'll for sure be looking to scoop up lots of it if it goes to something like $500, which wouldn't shock me.

A big driver of this latest dump has been the FTX disaster. If you haven't heard, FTX is an exchange with a native token that just went bankrupt. There's lots of wordy, confusing reasons and explanations and excuses you can read about if you want, but the bottom line is that yet another DEFI exchange/token went broke. And this isn't poopypeecoin either. Tom Brady and Steph Curry had FTX endorsement deals. It was all over the Super Bowl last year. It's really not a good look at all for the crypto space, de-fi in particular. Like I said before, the more I see, the more of a BTC-maxi I become. Live by this mantra: "Never marry an alt-coin".

I got my average BTC price down to 22.1k. So obviously I'm still under water but not too bad. I'm steadily marching towards owning a full one, too. My ETH price is still 1309. I didn't go as crazy buying ETH because like I said, I think it's coming down further. 

I did a real good job waiting it out with Chainlink. I started selling its latest pump at 7.3 and was selling all the way to 9 where it topped out. It hovered in the 8s for a while and I started seeing some bullish LINK things around the internet, which I haven't in a long time. I got a little nervous it was going to keep running but I was patient and scooped it back up in the mid 6's during the this latest crash. My average LINK price is now 10.6.

I got back in on Litecoin and a tiny bit on Matic but small amounts so not much news there. My average prices are 32.6 and .2 on LTC and Matic respectively, but with tiny amounts. I'm mad I missed the dump on Matic, but I think it'll come down like I do with ETH. If you look at the MATIC/BTC pair, it looks way over valued. I like the idea of sticking with mostly BTC here and if/when the Ethereums and Matics of the world come down, I can buy them with BTC.

In other news, the midterm elections came and kind of went (they're still counting. Guess where?) and unless the ones still counting all break for the right, which is highly unlikely, it'll be disappointing for republicans. Everyone on the planet saw a red wave coming and we barely got a trickle. Although even with it going not as good as it was "supposed" to for the right, it looks like republicans will take the House and the Senate is very much up for grabs. 538 has the right winning the House 84% of the time and the Senate 59%.

First off, as bad of a night for the right as this was, and it was bad, it certainly was not a "good" showing for the left. The party in power is supposed to win midterm elections. It seems so bad for the right because people were really expecting a blowout. The same states that did it in 2020 are taking forever to count their votes, again. This really, really needs to stop. Even if everything is perfectly on the up and up, which it isn't, but either way, it's a terrible look. Right or wrong, a lot of people are very concerned about security and integrity in our elections right now, and having the SAME counties have the SAME long, ridiculous delays is not going to restore anyone's faith. 

I think the right needs to really think about its abortion stance. Regardless of what I think, I know that  that's a big issue that people on the left just can't get behind. I've always felt that the GOP has such a perfect opportunity to use it as a bargaining chip on just about anything else. Voter ID, gun laws, taxes, anything. Budge a tiny bit on abortion and get rid of absentee/mail in voting. Boom.

Another problem on the right is WTF is with some of these candidates?? Hershel Walker?? DOCTOR OZ?! We can laugh at all of the absurdity from the left, and there is plenty, but Doctor OZ?? We've got to do better than that.

Of course, this all leads back to the one, big, massive problem the right has, lurking in the shadows. We've seen rumblings lately. It's the Trump/Desantis fight. Anyone who wanted to move on from Trump faced a lingering issue; who can replace him? Who on the right could even come close? Ted Cruz? Wrecked. Rubio? Bent the knee. Mitt Romney? Bent the knee like no one has ever bent a knee before. There really hasn't been anyone on the right that could compete with the raw ID of Trump. But now there might be. Desantis seems like the real deal and he just absolutely mowed down his opponent in Florida, flipping lots of typically blue counties in the process. (This happened early Tuesday night and people were REALLY sensing a red wave coming which only added to the disappointment). I don't think any reasonable person can argue with how he handled the pandemic. To me, he seems like Trump minus the bafoon-ery, which is exactly what I've wanted for the right since Trump came to power.

On paper, I think Trump was a good, borderline great president. I like his policies. But you don't run a country on paper and even the biggest MAGA guy has to admit, some of the Trump stuff is just flat out  embarrassing. He's an insecure guy with a massive ego. I've always thought of him as more of a murder weapon. He was the perfect guy for the moment. He called out the media and the useless in the GOP. But he's not a long term solution. He's too fragile of a guy. He needs too much. Either way, the next two years will be quite interesting to watch the top of the GOP ticket.

As if there wasn't enough going on this week, we had a CPI report yesterday (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf) that came in quite a bit better than expected. Actually, I should say, not as pants-shittingly bad as most expected. The stock market got a nice bump from it and has carried over into today. Fun fact; over the history of the S&P, the biggest pumps have come in bear markets. Everything is still way down from their recent peaks, but we're starting to see maybe some recovery? Is the bottom in for stocks? Again, who knows. I really don't think so. I think we're going to be looking at about a year of more pain and then sideways then up in 2024. Depends a lot on what the Fed does. The next BTC halving will come in 2024 which is something to keep in mind. I think we'll be looking back in two years saying "I cannot believe I could have got BTC at 16k or Tesla under $200", etc. But again, who knows.

Just remember, be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. "Buy when there's blood in the streets." Right now people are afraid of their shadows. The market can always go lower, so if you sit around and wait you can miss the whole thing. This isn't advice, I'm still very much a noob, but I don't think anyone will regret starting out slow with crypto or stocks right now.

That's it, expect another post soon. Bye!

Crypto Update

One thing that has amused me in the crypto world is all the hoopla about "The CME Gap" or "The Gap". If you follow crypto social medias you've definitely heard some version of this. There's even a group calling themselves the "gap boys" (lol...honestly, how embarrassing is crypto sometimes). What CME refers to is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. On the CME, you can bet on the price of bitcoin without having to actually buy any bitcoin. It's for people who want to get in on it but are afraid of the technical or legal aspects, I would imagine. Now, the CME operates like any other American exchange and is closed on the weekends. But of course, crypto is 24/7. So whenever bitcoin makes a big move over the weekend, the price on the CME opens Monday higher or lower than where it closed on Friday. This creates a "gap", or, (ready?), a "CME gap". Up until somewhat recently, these "gaps" have always been filled. I think there's still one open at 9400ish and the gap boys will lead you to believe that the bottom isn't in until we "close the gap" or hit 9400.

This is, of course, nonsense. A gap on some random exchange that appears due to a technicality in its operating hours doesn't have predictive ability. I mean really, there's not much more to it than that. The "gaps" have been filled before because bitcoin is insanely volatile and moves around a bunch.

The only reason I'm mentioning this, I suppose, besides the fact that it's kind of funny, is that I feel like I see and hear about it a lot, and it really is a ridiculous notion. There is no predictave power in it! Just because it happened before doesn't mean it has to happen again, or is even likely to happen again. And I guess it's one of those weird kind of trend things that people are always, always looking for. I saw it in sports betting all time too. ("They're 6-0 against the spread coming off a home loss facing a non-divisional opponent with a winning record"). And I don't know what exactly it is about it that appeals to people but it's interesting.

It's largely been pain across all the markets for the past year now. It's close to exactly a year since bitcoin topped out at around 69k. I've been in buy-mode for a while now, but I just recently sold a little bit of everything in this latest little bear market pump. I think there's still much pain ahead and I'm looking to buy back in and average down. My avg BTC price now is 23,270, Ether is 1308, and Link is 14.4 (looking back on my posts I'm slowly getting these numbers down which is good). Litecoin and Matic I'm actually free loading on now as I took more profits than I ever spent. But I own tiny pieces of those two now. LTC, Matic and Link really pumped the past week or so, so I took some profits and I'll be looking to get back in pretty much as soon as possible (as soon as the price goes below my worst most recent buy, I'll start buying back in). I've been using some of the money from the alt coins to buy more bitcoin. Mostly though, lately, I've been doing the opposite, selling bitcoin for alt coins. Trading coins back and forth for each other might honestly be my most favorite thing to do in this space. I'm only up a couple hundred bucks doing it but it's 100% free money. And it really scratches that trading itch I'll always have. (Matic pumped recently because Instagram announced they've be using Matic for some kind of NFT thing they have going, by the way. Whatever. Take profits, sell the news and I'll see you again at .8.)

I started buying Matic at .835 and took quick profits at .886. Bought back in at .845 then took profits at .899 and then .925. Then bought up the dip nicely at .85, .83, .75 and even .73. Sold a little bit at .837. Back in at .807. Profits at .86, buy back in at .818, sell some .88 and .93. Buy a little bit at .86 and then sold about 80% in this latest push at .92, .99, and finally 1.22. And that is how you get your average price to be below zero. Now, if it just keeps ripping I'll look foolish and will have cost myself dearly. But if it goes back down it's a really good move. Only time will tell, but I'm betting that with the macro environment right now, this isn't the start of some massive 200% bull run for Matic or ChainkLink or Litecoin. When they come back down into my range, I'll start buying again. I wish I got into these alt-coins earlier, I do have to say. I don't really care or believe in the use cases for most of them, but I'm starting to think that I can probably make at least a little bit of money with anything that just moves a lot. I do have on rule with them though, and that is to never sell all of anything. I might go as low as under 100 bucks, but never to zero. I should probably come up with a solid number though. Let's say I never go under 200 bucks worth, from now on.

I think my biggest weakness so far trading crypto and to a lesser extent stocks, has probably been over trading. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing. I always want to sell if I think I can buy back in lower later, and I'm always buying dips. I think this is pretty clearly the best strategy overall, but I often find myself selling too much too soon, or buying back in as soon as I'm in the money instead of letting it ride out more. I really felt this way when it was all bull run all the time last year. Now that I'm going through my first real bear market. though, it does look quite a bit better in hindsight. If I never sold any bitcoin, I'd be buried with an average price of 34k. It would be a while before I was in the green again. But with selling, my average price is 23.2k. The cost is that I own a lot less than I would have, but if you buy already planning to sell, you can end up with close to the amount of exposure you want.

That's it for today, Ill have an update soon with some election stuff.