The markets are on edge. The Fed has signalled it will use its tool box to curb inflation which includes raising rates and tapering. The market has shuddered. "Don't fight the Fed"! is the prevailing market wisdom. The market pundits and the news media are pronouncing that rising rates combined with less liquidity is going to be bad for stocks and that this could be the end of the historic bull market.

First of all, this movie has played out before. Between late 2016 and 2018 the Fed started to signal it was going to raise rates and high growth stocks sold off as they are the most rate-senstitive. Investors rotated into defensive stocks with strong earnings. However once rate hikes happened the same growth stocks that were now priced for those rate hikes, performed really well, while the defensive stocks did not. A good case can be made that we will see a repeat of the same pattern. Earnings remain robust, supply issues are likely to turn around in 2022 and inflation will eventually come down from it's current highs.

Likewise, the economy continues to find its way through the disruptions of COVID and while this may take more time than people think, we will move past COVID as the rest of the world begins to get vaccinated and build immunity. However, it would be foolish to discount new variants emerging over the coming 12 months - and more disruptions to global economies - while over 90% of the developing countries are still unvaccinated.

Omicron and Inflation are the boogeymen out to spoil the Holiday Season. Should you let them?

Markets are souring as news of record inflation numbers rebound across the globe alongside the emergence of a markedly different strain of the coronavirus out of South Africa. Wall Street is worried about the potential severity and impact of Omicron on the economy and how it may stall a potential recovery. The inflation concern is principally tied to worries regarding potential hikes in interest rates in 2022 and their impact on valuations and the stock market altogether.

These are real concerns. The question is how "real" and the answer to both of these issues is "unknown" at this juncture. The studies on Omicron and the efficacy of the various vaccines to thwart or limit it are still in process. Initial reports suggest that the impact of Omicron is less mild disease than the current Delta variants, but it is simply too early to tell if this is true. Markets are waiting for scientifically backed data and news.

Institutional adoption of digital currencies and payment methods is on the rise. We are seeing a tectonic shift in the payments landscape along with the rise of Bitcoin. However, behind Bitcoin, blockchain companies and projects are looking to reinvent the way individuals and entire industries transact across the entire global industrial landscape.

One of the the core concepts behind blockchain is "trustless" transactions which essentially means transactions between two parties that are controlled by a piece of computer code "A smart contract" that is programmed to embody the transactional details and execute automatically. Essentially any "exchange" of property or digital property can be programmed accordingly removing the need or reliance on centralized parties or intermediaries to broker an exchange for fees. The movement to decentralised finance for example aims to remove "banks" and "brokers" as intermediaries allowing what is known as "peer" to "peer" transactions. Individual A can buy a stock or any asset directly from Individual B in a secure and trustless manner or Individuals can send monies "peer to peer" directly to one another without a bank as an intermediary.

Every transaction on the blockchain is recorded in a tamper proof ledger. No one can go back in time and modify the ledger which makes blockchain one of the most secure and transparent technologies in history to date.

$28 Trillion - take a moment to reflect on this number - is the current total of the US National Debt. As of June 17th it is precisely $28,311,074,615,442.85. We titled this blog post "28 Trillion reasons to be vigilant" because this number is not going down, has not gone down in the last 15 years and is unlikely to go down. So, what does this mean for the USA and for you?

1.The cost of servicing the national debt as a percentage of US revenue is going up.

2.If interest rates rise significantly, even as high as 3-4%, how sustainable is servicing the national debt? The Fed has a significant incentive - 28 trillion incentives - to keep interest rates as close to zero for as long as possible without going into negative yield territory. This would very likely have been the case had COVID never happened. COVID however has provided the US a perfect storm to do keep interest rates at all time lows and inject $6 trillion and counting into the economy. This serves several national purposes: It provides massive liquidity to withstand the shock of COVID, it devalues the US dollar by doing so, which in turn dilutes the national debt value, it keeps interest payments on the national debt as low as possible and it allows for the most optimum conditions for the economy to return to pre-COVID employment numbers.

We have seen this movie before. After the roaring 1920's, the stock market melted up to euphoric highs only to crash in stupendous fashion. In the internet boom of the late 1990's the NASDAQ hit likewise euphoric highs only to crash back down to earth. Following extremely lax lending practices coupled with low interest rates the flying real estate boom coupled with mortgage backed securities fueled the 2007/8 great recession taking the entire banking and monetary system to the brink. Massive stimulus injections lifted us out of that great depression.

Economists have long seen repeating economic cycles in history. Booms followed by Bubbles and then Busts with long periods of economic stagnation, only for the cycle to repeat. We have written about this before but want to write about it again because while we have seen this movie before in the US and all around the world, the movie we are seeing unfold the US today is different to one's we have seen in US history.  

The convergence of record national debt, stimulus, low interest rates, inflation, a booming stock market in the midst of a global recession have created a mix of ingredients that could fuel one of the great bubbles and busts of the modern era.