Business

No healthcare reform, a hawkish Yellen, and dismal housing and confidence data... equity markets jump...presumably because the world did not end... but did dump into the close

Former Fortress Principal Michael Novogratz left the firm's colossal macro hedge fund almost two years ago, but has been discussing investments in virtual currencies since 2013 when he told a UBS conference...

"Put a little money in Bitcoin...Come back in a few years and it’s going to be worth a lot."

He was of course correct, Bitcoin was trading around $200 at the time and as recently as three weeks ago was worth $5000...

With Equifax shares having plunged by a third since the company announced a historic corporate cyber-breach, which released the personal records of over 143 million Americans to still unknown hackers, losing some $5 billion in market cap, today the company's CEO was the latest rat to leave the sinking ship, a move which failed to prompt a jump in the stock and was widely panned by the analyst community as indicative of further troubles ahead.

Last week, ahead of the FOMC, we reported that in the latest striking development involving volatility derivative products, the total outstanding Vega across the entire levered and inverse VIX ETP space had reached $375 million, an all time high. 

This, as Bank of America showed, was the result of the highest positioning in levered long VIX ETPs since July 2016 offset by a record high exposure across short ETPs.

Via Soveriegnman.com

[Editor’s note: This letter was co-written with Tim Price, co-founder of the VT Price Value portfolio and editor of Price Value International.]

In the late spring of 1720, Sir Isaac Newton decided to sell his stocks.

Newton had been an investor in the South Sea Company, a famous enterprise which effectively commanded a trading monopoly with South America.