The money question
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” – Antonio Gramsci ||
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend. The past few days have been rough here in Madrid with the fires, the most destructive on record. In the city centre, we’re fine (although the air was hard to breathe for a while) – several surrounding regions, however, have been devastated. And the fire season is not over, so if any of you know any rain incantations….
👀 You’re reading Crypto is Macro Now, which covers the interregnums we’re living through and the role of crypto in how this all plays out. 👀
📽 Come join me on Thursday for a Press Publish Substack Live chat with Michael Howell, author of the Capital Wars newsletter! More details below.
PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨
Another onchain pre-IPO market nailed the IPO opening price
CXMT started trading earlier today, opening 472% above the issue price. The Hyperliquid perp had sat 12% under that level on listing eve, then closed most of the remaining gap in the last fifteen minutes as Shanghai’s opening auction published indicative prices.
The bankers’ price, on the other hand, was 82% below the open.
→ For more details on perp investor positioning, join the Allium Research mailing list: https://www.allium.so/research-hub
IN THIS NEWSLETTER
Coming up this week: central banks, macro reads.
Monday musings: The money question
Podcast episode recommendations
Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on the overlap between the crypto and macro landscapes. Plus links and more.
If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much!! ❤
WHAT I’M WATCHING:
✨Press Publish with Michael Howell✨
Join me this coming Thursday for a Substack Live chat with Michael Howell, author of the Capital Wars newsletter which offers market insight you’re definitely not going to get anywhere else – no wonder Substack tells me it’s the #1 newsletter in the UK. Many of you will already be familiar with Michael’s deep expertise in global liquidity flows; his book Capital Wars remains the only coherent explanation I’ve read on how they are both a massive force and a complex machine that moves economies as well as markets.
But we’re not going to talk about any of that. Instead, we’re going to discuss Michael’s writing, why he does what he does, how he juggles his time, what he thinks of publishing platforms, and more. A back-room glimpse into how the insightful output gets made.
👉 Thursday, July 30th – 3pm BST / 4pm CEST / 10am EST – come join us!
Link to livestream: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/294553
Coming up this week:
It’s central bank week, with 14 due to make a decision on rates. Plus, some key macro reports.
Tomorrow, we get the latest report from the US Conference Board on consumer confidence. (There’s an interesting op-ed in the Financial Times today by Ruchir Sharma that mentions an overlooked reason why consumer survey responses don’t reflect actual economic conditions, aside from unequal spending: it’s the gloom of economic headlines, themselves influenced by the need for clicks.)
On Wednesday, we get the official US rates decision from the FOMC as its two-day meeting concludes. The market is signalling an almost 40% probability there will be a hike – I don’t remember the last time the odds were this uncertain two days out. In part, the confusion is due to the escalation and then de-escalation of attacks in the Gulf, to conflicting signs on inflation, and to the Fed’s new “no forward guidance” policy …
(chart via Bloomberg)
… all of which should make Wednesday’s post-FOMC press conference – Chair Kevin Warsh’s second in his new role – even more interesting. No doubt journalists will get creative in trying to tease out some indication of timing on the next rates move; no doubt Warsh will yet again politely dodge their questions.
We also get earnings from SK Hynix, Meta and Microsoft.
Thursday brings the US Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) report for June, with the headline index year-on-year growth expected to decelerate from 4.1% to 3.7%, and the core index to slow slightly from 3.4% to 3.3%. On a month-on-month basis, the headline index is forecast to deliver its first negative growth since 2020, echoing what we saw in the CPI report.
We also get the initial US Q2 GDP report, with growth expected to hold steady at an annualized rate of 2.1%.
And we get the initial read on EU Q2 GDP growth, expected to accelerate slightly from 0.3% annualized to 0.4%.
Plus, Apple, Amazon and Samsung report Q2 earnings.
On Friday, we get Japan’s latest inflation read for Tokyo, with year-on-year growth forecast to accelerate slightly from 1.6% to 1.7%. Later in the day, the Bank of Japan announces its interest rate decision, with consensus opinion pointing to no move.
We also get a smattering of inflation reads from Europe, including that of the Eurozone – headline inflation is forecast to accelerate slightly from 2.8% to 2.9% year-on-year, while core inflation is expected to hold steady at 2.4%.
🍧 If you find this newsletter at all useful, or even if you just like my excellent music recommendations and fun gifs, would you mind sharing it with friends and colleagues and nudging them to subscribe? I’d appreciate it! 😊
Monday musings: The money question
(what’s on my mind as we head into the week)
The essence of money is something that most of us never think about. Maybe we think about how to get more of it and why it disappears so fast – and for many, those threads are all-consuming, about survival. But peer closely and they’re really about numbers and about our actions. We need or want more, and we make plans to achieve that.
