Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
The tax "reform" currently being discussed in Washington is mostly a political exercise for politicians who can use the process to extract more campaign contributions from supporters, and punish non-supporters. The actual tax burden imposed on Americans overall will change little.
As Russia braces for further sanctions from Washington D.C. over their alleged role in "meddling" in the 2016 U.S. election, they are reportedly prepping a $1 billion yuan-denominated bond issuance in an effort to preemptively diversify financing risks away from the West. According to Bloomberg, the sale will total 6 billion yuan and could come as early as next week.
With several months having passed since the last prominent hedge fund closure, the recent narrative that the 2 and 20 community was doing exceedingly well to close out the year (with long/shorts piling into tech names with record leverage), was starting to gain traction. That may have changed this afternoon, when Reuters reported that well-known hedge fund manager Neil Chriss announced he is liquidating his $2.2 billion firm Hutchin Hill Capital LP after three years of poor performance. The firm lost roughly 5.5% in the January-November period after having been up 4.7% in 2016.
In the past few days two Federal Reserve presidents have discussed cryptocurrencies and concluded they are "niche" and "don't matter today."
The total market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency space is around $300 billion - smaller than the Top 10 names in the S&P 500.
In the last three years, Bitcoin has gained a similar amount of market cap as Nvidia...
A de minimus percentage of Americans are exposed to Bitcoin and crypto-currencies.
The longest short-squeeze streak in history continues...