Why is Jeff Bezos, the Founder-CEO of Amazon, Stepping Down?
Feb 04, 2021 | News
Jeff Bezos, the founder-CEO of Amazon, announced this week that he was stepping down. This immediately caught our attention, as TradeSmith Decoder has held a stake in AMZN since April 2020. We’ve traded around the position multiple times, sometimes adding, sometimes booking partial profits. As of the Feb. 3 close, the core position is up more than 50%. For Bezos…
Access Drives Engagement: Why the Trading Landscape Has Changed
Feb 03, 2021 | News
The stock market is both timeless and ever-changing, which makes it a curious paradox. On the one hand, markets look, feel, and behave exactly the same today as they did 100 years ago, or even two millennia ago. We can read stories of a bull market mania or market panic from the early 1900s, or the 17th and 18th centuries,…
The ‘Reddit Silver Squeeze’ is Not Likely to Succeed
Feb 01, 2021 | News
When writing about the GameStop squeeze last week, we compared it to Fight Club on Wall Street, referencing the 1999 movie with Brad Pitt and Ed Norton. On Friday, Jan. 29, the Fight Club aspect of the game spilled over into the real world, as a Redditor purchased space on a digital billboard in New York’s Times Square. The advertisement…
Robinhood Ignites Widespread Bipartisan Fury — But the Media Got the Story Wrong
Jan 29, 2021 | News
You have likely heard of Robinhood, the zero-commission stock trading app that exploded in popularity during the pandemic. (It was already popular pre-Covid, but lockdown boredom and stimulus checks sent sign-ups to new heights.) On Thursday, Jan. 28, Robinhood ignited bipartisan fury with its decision to restrict users’ ability to buy calls or shares in GameStop (GME), the stock at…
GameStop is a Game that Might Not Stop
Jan 28, 2021 | News
In 2018, Elon Musk said reality as we know it is probably a simulation. His basic rationale was that, because the universe is old enough to produce advanced-technology civilizations, there is a high probability those civilizations know how to run advanced computer simulations. The implication is that life on earth, as you and I know it, is one of those…
China is Using its Currency to Stockpile Copper and Grains
Jan 25, 2021 | News
In the TradeSmith Decoder model portfolio, we have a large position in a top-tier copper miner that was up more than 190% as of last Friday’s close. For that we say: “Thank you, China.” There are other crucial factors driving the price of copper higher — and grains, too — but China is a big one. China has been using…
The SPAC Supernova Will Likely End With a Spectacular Collapse — But Not Yet
Jan 19, 2021 | News
The Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC for short, had a supernova kind of year in 2020. The after-effects could be felt, in a bullish way, well into 2021, as hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of SPAC-driven merger and acquisition (M&A) activity waits to be unleashed. In 2020, the total amount of capital flowing into SPAC deals smashed all…
Scenes from an Epic Market Mania: Bull Raids and Meme Stocks
Jan 15, 2021 | EducationalNews
Speculative areas of the market are not just red hot, they are white hot. Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), a barometer of speculative froth, are on fire. In the past few days alone: Petco Health and Wellness (WOOF) jumped more than 63% on their first day of trading. Poshmark (POSH) saw its share price more than double on the first day….
Why a New Commodity Supercycle Could Now Be Underway
Jan 14, 2021 | EducationalNews
Goldman Sachs thinks a new commodity supercycle could be underway. We think they might be right. If they are in fact right — which is easily possible — base metals like copper, along with other commodity staples widely used in construction, vehicles, and home appliances, could be looking at price gains that stretch out over a decade, or even multiple…
Bitcoin Will Not Replace the U.S. Dollar (It Will Do Something Better Instead)
Jan 13, 2021 | EducationalNews
As the institutional world starts taking Bitcoin seriously, new questions are emerging. For instance: Will Bitcoin replace the U.S. dollar? Will it push aside major fiat currency competitors? Could Bitcoin usher in a fiat-free world? In our view, the answer is “no” three times over. The destiny of Bitcoin is not to replace or dominate fiat currencies. It is to…