The Hoot #44

Scatt's Seeds for Thought:

🌱 Does Crypto Finance Terrorism? 💲

🌱 Indian Oil & Gas Uses Blockchain 🤝🏼

🌱 Apollo Global: 10 Downside Risks 🚨

🌱 World’s Biggest Stock Markets 📊

Meme of The Week

Year-to-date Market Performance:

• S&P 500: 10.02%

• Dow: -0.06%

• Nasdaq Comp: 24.05%

• Bitcoin: 78.75%

• Ethereum: 33.69%

• Scatt Capital’s Fortune Strategy: +2.69% (Since Inception (12/22): -1.65%)

Market News:

• 7-Day Change in Crypto Market Cap: +$8bn

• STOCKS RETREAT AMID GAZA RISKS AS OIL PRICES RISE

• US TO TIGHTEN CURBS ON CHINA CHIP TECH ACCESS

• RECESSION NO LONGER IN CONSENSUS: WSJ

• BIDEN VISITS ISRAEL

• RISK-ADVISORY FIRMS SAY HONG KONG NOT WORTH IT

• HOME SALES ON TRACK FOR SLOWEST YEAR SINCE 2008

• GOLDMAN SACHS WANTS OUT OF CONSUMER LENDING

• AUST. CENTRAL BANK WANTS TO RAISE RATES IN OCT.

• FAKE BTC ETF APPROVAL SENDS BITCOIN SOARING TO $30K

• BINANCE US SUSPENDS ALL USD WITHDRAWALS

• BINANCE US DROPS FDIC PROTECTION

• RETAIL SALES ROSE BY 0.7% IN SEP.

• 70% OF ALAMEDA’S LOANS SERVICED BY FTX CUSTOMER FUNDS

• GRAYSCALE FILES NEW SPOT BITCOIN ETF APPLICATION

• POWELL SIGNALED FED WILL HOLD RATES

• HARVARD ENDOWMENT OUTPERFORMED YALE’S

• THE 60/40 PORTFOLIO HAD ITS WORST YEAR IN GENERATIONS

• BOFA: $130+BN UNREALIZED LOSSES ON HTM SECURITIES

• THE WEEK AHEAD: 

  • New Home Sales

  • Pending Home Sales

  • PCE Inflation Numbers

Does Crypto Finance Terrorism? 💲

With the Middle East on it’s head, it begs the question…

Is terrorism made easier through crypto?

Short answer? No.

Hamas stopped using crypto to raise funds in April 2023 “out of concern for the safety of donors”.

Why? Because BLOCKCHAINS ARE PUBLIC LEDGERS 📢

Everyone can see who sent it, where it went and the amount… and one quick look at the chart below shows exactly that.

A lot of the media portrays that crypto is making things 10x worse.

Completely not true.

Some of the crypto wallets ‘flagged’ for terrorism haven’t had a single transaction in YEARS.

One Hamas wallet dating back a few years has only $16 in it…

Don’t believe everything you see or read.

Indian Oil & Gas Uses Blockchain 🤝🏼

India is back at it!

A state-run refiner in India has partnered with Zupple Labs to integrate a blockchain-based credential system.

This will make it easier to issue digital purchase orders to its vendors.

ALL while not having to manually verify each request.

So how does this help?

2 major things: Increased efficiency, and boosted security.

You can always rely on India to do these things correctly.

Apollo Global: 10 Downside Risks 🚨

Apollo is a MASSIVE asset manger across credit, equities and real assets.

And here are their 10 potential downside risks to the US economy:

• Households running out of savings

• Student loan payments restarting

• Inflation forces Fed to tighten too much

• Deliquency rates on auto and credit loans

• Default rates rising for HY and loans

• Interest rate coverage ratios declining

• Banking sector loan growth slowing

• Rising oil prices

• China, Japan & EU slowing

• Long term interest rates rising for non-economic reasons

We’re glass half-full kinda people here at Scatt Cap, but…

You gotta be aware of the potential downsides.

World’s Biggest Stock Markets 📊

Uncle Sam taking the Gold once again 🥇

Below is a chart of the biggest stock markets in the world.

The top 3 are:

• New York Stock Exchange 🇺🇸

• Nasdaq 🇺🇸

• Euronext 🇪🇺

American market share is almost half of the entire world’s volume.

And between 2016 and 2023, the global stock market grew by $41 trillion or 59% 👀

Massive!

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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.