The Hoot #16

Scatt's Seeds for Thought:

🌱 Uncle Sam Sells $1 billion in Bitcoin 🤨

🌱 Musk Replaces Twitter Bird with Crypto Dog 🐕

🌱 OPEC+ Cuts Oil 🛢️

🌱 Taylor Swift's Career in Numbers 💰

Meme of The Week

Year-to-date Market Performance:

• S&P 500: 6.92%

• Dow: 1.02%

• Nasdaq Comp.: 15.49%

• Bitcoin: 68.62%

• Ethereum: 54.81%

• Scatt Capital’s Fortune Strategy: 32.13% (Since Inception: 27.80%)

• Scatt Capital’s Flight Strategy: 2.21% (Since Inception: 2.21%)

• 7-Day Change in Crypto Market Cap: $6bn

• Job openings fell by 632,000 in February to 9.9 million, vs. an expected 10.5 million. This is the lowest level since May, 2021 signaling a possible cooling in the labor market.

• U.S. Trade Balance data for Feb. came in at -$70.5B, vs. an expected -$69.1B.

• March's Unemployment rate decreased to 3.5%, vs. an estimated 3.6%.

• Hiring slowed in March as the economy added 236,000 jobs, fewer than February’s figure of 311,000.

• Data for the Week Ahead: CPI (Inflation); PPI (Inflation); March Retail Sales

Uncle Sam Sells $1 billion in Bitcoin 🤨

Yep, you read that right. Uncle Sam (aka the U.S. Government) has been SELLING CRYPTO. A recent court filing showed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) sold $215 million dollars (approx. 9,861 bitcoin) 🫠 Furthermore, they also announced that they'll be selling an additional 41,500 bitcoin, which will be sold off across 4 different batches over the course of the year. Can you actually believe it? They target 🎯 it by day, and profit from it by night 🫡

So where did they get all the bitcoin from? They seized about 50,000 BTC after the 'Silk Road' was shut down (it was an online black market where you could buy near-anything with crypto). The timing of it all was quite interesting though... they used Coinbase to sell the first batch ($215m), and then about a week later they send Coinbase a Wells Notice (formal notification that an enforcement action will be brought against them) for 'breaking the law' 🤭

Musk Replaces Twitter Bird with Crypto Dog 🐕

Every day that passes where Elon ISN'T on every headline in the country is a bad day, by his standards. And true to his style, he strikes yet again. This time he decided to make a change at Twitter. Even if you don't use Twitter, we all know it's famous blue bird logo 🐦 Well... it seems Elon's dog(e) chased the bird away.

Elon has always had a soft spot for the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, so much so that the renowned Dogecoin dog logo is now Twitter's too 🤭 As things usually are with Elon, nobody really knows why he did it. It could well be a prolonged April Fool's joke, or something cool like a Twitter-Dogecoin partnership 🤝🏼 However, despite people not knowing the purpose of it, Dogecoin still jumped more than 35% after the change was made 📈

Listen... there's also a good chance that Elon is just 'pumping his bags' (increasing the value of his holdings) but honestly, the one thing I've learned with Elon is to be ready for anything 😵‍💫 He did, however, just a few days later revert back to the old blue bird logo. Again, what this all means to us us unknown right now, but it's nevertheless great exposure for crypto overall 🤝🏼

OPEC+ Cuts Oil ✂️🛢️

For those that see this acronym often and don't know what it means: Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, AKA the biggest cartel in the world. It is made up of countries like Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦, Russia 🇷🇺, Iraq 🇮🇶, UAE 🇦🇪, Kuwait 🇰🇼, Algeria 🇩🇿, & Kazakhstan 🇰🇿, among many others (hence the '+' sign). In this list you've got some of the biggest independent oil producers on earth - if you look at it collectively, you'll see why I called them a cartel.

OPEC has an enormous amount of influence in the oil market, so when they cut/increase supply, or adjust their pricing - it has a big ripple effect on the rest of the world. And this is exactly what just happened on Sunday with the organization announcing production cuts of 3.66 million barrels/day (bpd), with Saudi Arabia and Russia responsible for 1 million of the cuts alone ✂️ This will naturally increase the price of oil through supply & demand 📈

Why does this matter? Well there's 2 things to be concerned about (for Uncle Sam 🇺🇸 I mean):

• The Federal Reserve has been fighting inflation with interest rate hikes for the last year. Oil is a big component of the inflationary measures that the Fed uses to make rate decisions. With the price rising, that could put pressure on inflation and thus the Fed to raise rates even higher, inflicting more damage 😬

• The overarching theme... There is a clear divide in incentives between the West and the East, suggesting that we're moving into a more fragmented world order. These production cuts are NOT going to be welcome by the West, putting an even bigger wedge between the two. 🤬

Taylor Swift's Career in Numbers 💰

• 33 years old, from Pennsylvania 👸🏼

• 12 albums, with 229 songs 🎶

• ~$400m net worth 💵

• $81m in real estate, spread across 10 properties ranging from an apartment in London, to a ranch in Beverly Hills 🏡

• She's been in 12 different relationships, the latest still ongoing with Joe Alwyn (they just broke up... we just know there's another album on the way).

• Won 12 Grammys with 46 nominations 🏆

• Holds the record for the most concert tickets sold in 1 day: 2.4 million 🎟️

• Her most expensive concert ticket sold for more than $73,000 💰

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See you next week 🦉

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.