Turkish Central Bank Implements another Significant Rate Hike!
The Turkish Central Bank (CBT) has taken another important step, raising its key rate by 2.5% to 17.5%. Though it slightly missed market expectations (18.5%), the chosen monetary policy path has instilled confidence among investors. This is evident as the 5-year Turkish Credit Default Swaps have hit a new low, not seen since November 2021. Furthermore, Turkish government and corporate bonds denominated in USD have demonstrated an impressive performance, gaining +6% in 2023. In addition to these developments, it is noteworthy that Turkey has recently received substantial economic support from the UAE, totaling more than $50 billion. Could this influx of support help mitigate the sharp weakness experienced by the Turkish Lira? Source : Bloomberg.
According to the latest BofA survey, fund managers are now UNDERWEIGHT commodities
The last time fund managers were this bearish on #commodities, #crudeoil futures were literally trading below zero. Source: BofA
What goes up must come down...
The collapse in US CPI over the past year is extreme, falling from 9.1% to 3%. BofA writes: "...since 1980, only in 8 cases had inflation fallen by more than 6% in a year, and only in France in 1990 from a starting point lower than 10%." Source: TME, BofA
‘Cheapest country to mine bitcoin’ just banned the practice altogether
Kuwait’s capital markets regulator banned bitcoin mining this week as they reiterated prohibitions on crypto activities. The prohibition came down via an official circular released on Tuesday. Kuwaiti authorities had previously only expressed disapproval of crypto payments. Kuwait is now reinforcing restrictions on institutions and other payment services touching crypto, but so far it seems to have stopped short of outright criminalizing interactions with crypto for individuals. Still, regulators stated the use of crypto as a form of payment is strictly prohibited, and residents are advised against engaging in any transactions involving cryptocurrency. But until now, the regulatory status of crypto mining had been ambiguous. The recent circular changes that.
Source: Blockworks
The hype surrounding "Threads," the new social network launched by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has collapsed
Threads has unraveled so quickly that new data shows active users have been halved. Threads launched in the US on July 5 and reached over 100 million sign-ups by that weekend. Shortly after, Zuckerberg wrote in a post, "Can't believe it's only been five days!" Zuckerberg appears to have prematurely taken a victory lap because early last week, data from SensorTower and SimilarWeb showed an exodus of users and a plunge in engagements. The note was titled Threads Unravels: So-Called 'Twitter Killer' App Sees Exodus Of Users, Plunge In Engagement. New data from SimilarWeb shows the exodus has worsened. As of last Friday, daily active users on the app collapsed from 49 million to 23.6 million in a week. Usage in the US peaked on July 7 at about 21 minutes of engagement. By Friday, that number plunged to just six minutes. SimilarWeb said the app lacks basic features that "offer a compelling reason to switch from Twitter or start a new social media habit." Also, some users found Threads has been dominated by censorship.
The US government interest payments on the Federal debt are now higher than the annual defence spending
Source: Tavi Costa, Crescat Capital, Bloomberg
The S&P has gone 37 days without a 1% decline – last seen at the NOV 2021 Top
Many similar streaks ended with some big volatility spike. Source: Macrocharts
Is netflix still a growth stock?
Netflix Q2 revenues were 2.7% higher than a year ago, the second lowest growth rate in company history (lowest was 1.9% in Q4 2022). $NFLX Source: Charlie Bilello
