NFT’s, which stands for “non-fungible tokens”, are cryptographic digital assets that exist on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish each from all others. Unlike cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, that are identical and, therefore, can serve as a medium for transactions, NFTs are unique and intended to represent some real-world asset like a work of art, music, photos, etc.
In a widely-anticipated move, the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates 75 basis points this week. Despite the move being widely expected, financial markets plunged the remainder of the week. So what was the catalyst?
The reversal of the bear market from mid-June to mid-August provided relief for many and hope that the worst was over. However, while the rally was pushing stocks towards positive territory, encouraging an increase in equity exposure, we remained increasingly concerned about the challenging monetary policy and economic backdrop as well as our stubbornly negative market indicators.
Analyst Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com did a deep dive into the details of this week’s inflation report and what he found wasn’t pretty. While the headline CPI and even the core CPI weren’t worse than expected, Richter found that the CPI for ‘services’ was a “nightmare”, which “spiked relentlessly” to its highest increase since October of 1982.
In October of 1973 the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo targeted at nations that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The embargo led to the price of oil rising nearly 300% in the United States, and the formation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) an emergency stockpile of petroleum maintained by the Department of Energy.
As bad as inflation seems in the U.S., it is much worse in the Eurozone where inflation jumped 9.1% in August - a new record for Eurozone data that goes back to 1997.