In today’s briefing:
- UK: Consumers Drown Their Sorrows
- Crypto: Perfect Storm on Stablecoin Infrastructure
- Let The Macro Polar Stars Guide You
UK: Consumers Drown Their Sorrows
- The bleak retail performance of the previous two months reversed to a surprising extent as sales surged by 1.4%. Demand for booze dominated falling non-food store sales.
- GDP seems only slightly less weak in Q2 as this bounce will probably prove short-lived around Easter. Falling real incomes squeezes sale volumes rather than raising values.
- Crashing consumer confidence has now reached record lows in contrast to the business optimism that seems set for a rude awakening as customers baulk at higher prices.
Crypto: Perfect Storm on Stablecoin Infrastructure
- Stablecoin TerraUSD (UST CURNCY) has de-pegged from USD; the implosion put pressure on Tether (USDT CURNCY). This resembled the confidence crises that precede bank runs.
- The incident happened under macro headwind such as tech stock sell-off, rising benchmark interest rates and TerraUSD specific algorithm design.
- The bigger worry of de-pegging has investors to re-assess the reserve behind stablecoin in the crypto ecosystem; we expect the ripple impact will continue for some time before settling down.
Let The Macro Polar Stars Guide You
- Powell’s remarks in the Wall Street Journal interview this week were quite interesting, and markets seem to have noticed: we have seen quite some wild moves, but again the most relevant price action is happening under the surface.
- In such a choppy market environment, systematic risk management techniques and a data-driven investment approach are key to tell the forest from the trees and reduce drawdowns in your portfolio.
- Powell played the hawkish horn again, and markets are reacting in quite some interesting ways.
Before it’s here, it’s on Smartkarma
