GM Friends & Investors.
The New Year has kicked has officially kicked off.
That said, I wanted to start your morning with the most bizarre fact.
Since March 2021, 360 new UFO cases have been reported to the U.S. intelligence service.
Oddly enough, most of the reports came from the U.S. Navy & U.S. Air force aviators and operators…
Highlights
CPI Report
Trouble in EU
FTX Found Money?
S&P 500
The market is all moves this week.
Infact, this is major indexes longest win streak since July after a positive inflation report.
The NASDAQ has seen 5 straight green days.
“I think the markets are pleased, but they don’t seem to be overly excited,” said Sandi Bragar, chief client officer at Aspiriant.
There is still al long way to go before inflation reaches the benchmark 2%
With that being said, be cautious.
Warrne Buffet has always said to buy when others are fearful and sell when they are greedy & we all know how that’s worked for him.
Economy
Even though the numbers were positive, investors weren’t as surprised as you might think.
CPI fell 0.1% in December –The biggest drop since April 2020.
Annualy, CPI rose 6.5% compared to 7.1% in Novemeber.
One of the major factors in this decrease has been the cooling of gas prices.
With every major rally, there are two sides of the same coin.
Pesimistic experts don’t thin they are close enough to “declare victory”. But the answers (as always) lie in the future.
Optimistic experts believe that people won’t even be talking about inflation this time next year.
What you should look out for next:
What the fed does at their next FOMC meeting. That will be a tell tale sign.
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Around the World
The Biggest Global Risks
The Global Risks Report from the World Economic Forum has highlighted the cost of living crisis and climate change as the greatest immediate and long-term global risks.
Governments are doing their utmost to manage the inflation and debt levels while also trying to reduce the impact of global risks.
This is creating a difficult situation for them, as they are stuck with making trade-off decisions in order to maintain balance.
Experts' Predictions:
Experts predict that governments will have to make plenty of difficult decisions in order to find solutions to the challenges they are facing. It is likely that they will have to make sacrifices in order to make progress on the various fronts.
Crypto
Rising from the Ashes
It's been a hard road for FTX since the bankruptcy filing in November. But there's good news!
Attorneys reported to a Delaware bankruptcy judge that FTX was able to recoup a whopping $5 billion in liquid assets. This includes cash, crypto, and securities (the $5 billion figure doesn't include any illiquid crypto assets).
This is a huge step towards recovery for FTX customers, after the crypto exchange had to face the music last year.
Meanwhile, Binance is taking a different route. CEO Changpeng Zhao revealed that Binance will be increasing its headcount by 15%-30%, even though the crypto market lost over $1.4 trillion in 2022.
“We will continue to build and hopefully we will ramp up again before the next bull market,” Zhao said.
Real Estate
It appears that consumer confidence in the housing market is on the move.
Fannie Mae's recent survey shows that people are expecting home prices to continue to drop over the next year, and that mortgage rates may follow suit.
The news is encouraging, especially when considering that mortgage rates are still much higher than they were a year ago. Home prices have been steadily dropping since June.
Thank you for reading!
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