The Wolf Of All Streets - SBF Trial Explained, Major Bank Predicts Ethereum At $8,000

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Join James Murphy aka MetaLawMan who will comment on the SBF trial and Dan The Chart Guy, to hear his technical analysis.  James Murphy: https://twitter.com/MetaLawMan Dan The Chart Guy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnqZ2hx679DqRi6khRUNw2g ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEK DAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/   ►►OKX Sign up for an OKX Trading Account then deposit & trade to unlock mystery box rewards of up to $60,000!  👉 https://www.okx.com/join/SCOTTMELKER  ►►THE DAILY CLOSE BRAND NEW NEWSLETTER! INSTITUTIONAL GRADE INDICATORS AND DATA DELIVERED DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX, EVERY DAY AT THE DAILY CLOSE. TRADE LIKE THE BIG BOYS. 👉 https://www.thedailyclose.io/   ►►NORD VPN  GET EXCLUSIVE NORDVPN DEAL - 40% DISCOUNT! IT’S RISK-FREE WITH NORD’S 30-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY! 👉 https://nordvpn.com/WolfOfAllStreets   ►►COINROUTES TRADE SPOT & DERIVATIVES ACROSS CEFI AND DEFI USING YOUR OWN ACCOUNTS WITH THIS ADVANCED ALGORITHMIC PLATFORM. SAVE TONS OF MONEY ON TRADING FEES LIKE THE PROS! 👉 http://bit.ly/3ZXeYKd  Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker   Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io   Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe   Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c   #Bitcoin #Crypto #Trading The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

The SPF trials continued into its second week, and we were not going to talk about it much here, but figured we'd bring on an actual lawyer to tell you what's going on, as opposed to my own horrid bad takes or bringing on a YouTuber or influencer to tell you about their feelings on the trial. We do try very hard here, guys, to actually bring on experts and for me to just get out of the way and allow them to give their informed opinions on topics. Of course, we also have a major bank predicting $8,000 Ethereum. Of course, this is Standard Charter, who is prone to hyperbolic predictions about price of our beloved crypto assets. So no huge surprises there, but worth talking about. Also, we had CPI coming in relatively hot today and Bitcoin seemingly on the dip.

We're going to talk about everything with James Murphy, our favorite seemingly banned lawyer from X. Probably talk about that too. And of course, I've got Dan the chart guys at the end to give us his endless alpha and analysis on the markets. You guys don't want to miss this one. Let us go. What's up, everybody? I'm Scott Mel melker also known as the wolf of all streets before we get started please subscribe to the channel and hit that like button i have the most dangerous

man in social media joining today because for some reason his ex account has just been permanently suspended he's not really dangerous he's's wonderful. I'm going to bring on James Murphy. We're going to talk about a few things here. James, when are we getting you back, man? That's a great question. I've got to persuade the algorithm, which is not as easy as it sounds. So it's been a while. They haven't told me what rule I violated or if I had a tweet or post that violated something. It's a big mystery right now. But appreciate everybody reaching out and supporting me at this point. And you having me on the show. Man, what a great time for us law nerds.

You know, it's so rare you get a really juicy trial like this. Yeah. This is reminiscent of the obsession with the OJ trial from my childhood, which the last time I can remember being riveted. Although to be quite honest, I've been opting out of this one because there's just so many bad takes, as I mentioned. Maybe it's time for us to unpack it. I'll talk about more of i think the market stuff on the back end obviously since since we got chart guys i got you here i'd just love to dive in so obviously we have spf starting his trial we have endless news and incredible revelations that are even shocking to me reading it now right i mean some of these things are are absurd you

know she they obviously caro. Obviously, Carolyn knew everything. Everybody knew everything. This was coordinated fraud. Alameda Research lost $190 million to avoidable scams and simple mistakes. If you read into this story, they literally had their private keys on plain text files that anybody who had access to any computer at FTX could access their private keys and lost $100 million on a simple phishing scan from a Google search. The most basic things that we tell people not to do here. We've got FTX co-founder Gary Wang says he took out $200 million to $300 million in loans from Alameda Research for Investments. Couldn't recall. It's a $200, $300 here. Not a big deal, right? Alameda had a $65 billion line of credit and unlimited withdrawals.

I mean, the revelations here to me are just, I mean, it's absolutely astounding. The bribing of officials, him trying to go to Saudi Arabia to get funding from MBS. I mean, it just doesn't end. But what I want to talk to you more about is the endless seemingly bad takes that people believe that SPF's fine. He's not going to get in trouble because he's connected in high places. I have a lot more faith in the judicial system than that, but let me hear your thoughts. Well, I have a theory on that. First of all, just the table setting, Scott, the jury is nine women and three men. What was reported early on is they're getting bored very quickly and that at least one juror is spending some time sleeping and that somehow

the jurors are signaling that they are bored and confused most of the time. And this is our jury system when you're dealing with a pretty sophisticated case. Now, for those of us who live in this world and understand crypto, it's not complicated at all. But for people who come to this cold, it is an intimidating subject. But I would say that this case is really moving quickly. And this judge, I think it's fair to say, is somewhat of a pro-government judge. And by the way, I don't claim to be objective here. Sam stole some of my money. I was a limited partner in a partnership that had some of its money on that FTX platform. And I'm not expecting to get that back anytime soon. But in any event, they have the goods on Sam. Interestingly, there's not as many smoking guns

out of email and texts as you might expect, but they do have the smoking guns on sending false balance sheets to investors and lenders, which are two or three of the counts in the indictment. sending false balance sheets to investors and lenders, which are two or three of the counts in the indictment. And so I think that got him dead to rights because it lines up with the testimony of Wang and Caroline Ellison. So I would say the judge is a little bit pro-prosecution

and he's signaling. When you're in a jury trial and the judge sustains the objections of one side and overrules the objections of the other side, it starts to send a signal to the jury of what the judge is thinking about what he's hearing. And then when the judge launches in with his own questions, that can really put a thumb on the scales. And, you know, because there is understandable confusion among some of the jurors, they do look to the judge for a signal of like, hey, who's winning here? What do we believe? And I've had trials where the judge has been kind of determinative, I think, on some of these issues.

I think this judge is tough. He didn't want to give bail in the first place. And I was strongly opposed to bail in the first place. Sam would have been out of here, man. Yeah. He did not want to do that. And then, you know, he barred Sam's lawyers from saying an opening statement, hey, Sam relied on some advice of the lawyers. And so that's a little weird because the

judge said the reason that he didn't want Sam's lawyers to say, well, Sam has relied on lawyers is that might be confusing to the jurors. Well, the jurors are confused, period. Everything is a little bit confusing to them. And so adding, hey, this is part of my defense that I got some advice that it's okay for Alameda to have a huge margin debt and deficit, blah, blah, blah. So in any event, the only reason I bring that up is you think down the road, are there grounds for appeal? That's how his lawyers are thinking now. I don't think they're thinking, hey, our guy's going to get off here. I think they are thinking he's going to be convicted and then what their strategy is going from there.

Yeah. You mentioned the balance sheets. I don't have the exact number. I was looking for it, but I believe I read that he directly asked Caroline to create like six false balance sheets to send to different lenders to show them different things. I mean, we know that this guy was doing the accounting in QuickBooks if they were doing accounting at all, right?

There was no firm doing this. But I mean, that's as outright of fraud as you can possibly get when you're lying to people about a massive hole and asking for more money, right? I mean, that right there is the rest of your life in prison alone. That's right. And ironically, the last jury trial I had in my career turned on a false ballot sheet. And I cross-examined like crazy the guy who had uh submitted this false balance sheet but the coup de grace was when the judge said hey mr murphy mind if i ask a couple questions and he just roasted the guy and the jury's like oh okay we get it this guy there's the judge there's the judge signaling, like you talked about before.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now, before we get too carried away, and I want to see him convicted. What he did was wrong, clearly wrong and illegal. Remember, the government has to go 12 for 12 to get a conviction. They got to get unanimous. Sam's just got to get one willing to hold out to get a hung jury. It's not a not guilty. It's a hung jury. Now, what are the odds of getting the one? Well, think about it. Would Michael Lewis be a one? Michael Lewis may have.

I won't read the book. I can't. I've considered it. I picked it up. I thought about it. But now that I've heard so much about it, I just can't do it. I read the whole thing. Kevin O'Leary might be a one. And remember, you remember this, Scott, when Sam was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin in that deal book conference, Andrew thanked him for him coming in in such a truthful, honest way to talk about what had happened. You know, so then what does that lead to? That in my mind leads to the Hail Mary here

is Sam must testify. If he does not testify, he's going to be convicted. If he does testify, he'll get roasted on cross-examination. But this is a tough, tough question. Think about it, Scott. If he does not testify and give his quote-unquote side of the story. Then he sits in a cell for decades going, you know what? In retrospect, I wish I had said something. Yeah. I mean, but it sounds like what he should have done is get really like jacked in prison, you know, all this time, get a really cool haircut and just stare deeply into the eyes

of one of those female juries for the entire time, which ironically, as much as that's a joke, we had Martin Shkreli on Crypto Town Hall on Twitter spaces who has been down this road a bit. And he actually on the bulk of his counts had one female juror that truly believed in him and believed his testimony and hung the jury on I think five of the six counts or something like that. So he did his six or seven years, whatever it was, but it could have been his whole life

if not for this one single female juror that he basically convinced, he said, by just giving her puppy dog eyes and sympathy the entire time to find him not guilty on those counts. Yeah, you never know. I mean, there's a woman on the jury who does special education. And so all of the witnesses and Sam are kind of on the spectrum, I guess, is how you describe it.

And so who knows what her take might be. It is possible. I can't rule out that if Sam testifies and says, look, I screwed up, you know what he's going to say. We saw that testimony that he was going to give in Congress. All of those interviews on Twitter spaces and the deal book, we know. And some people bought that act. And so it is possible that he could get one and get a hung jury on some of the counts. But if I were a betting man, I would say he'll be convicted on all counts.

My producer just sent me this amazing story. SBF tried Thai sex worker wallets to unflock frozen funds before bribing Chinese official witness claims. It's just a really good headline. I mean, but the thing is that the testimony is so damning because it seems he went to just outrageous lengths to try to cover up what he was doing and continue to fill the hole. And listen, maybe at the beginning he did not intend to be a fraudster.

It is possible that there was a mistake and you go down the road and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and you go further. I mean, we saw that with Celsius and Voyager. I'm not saying the same kind of fraud, but Steve Ehrlich from Voyager, for example, we know that at the beginning they were giving what would have been considered very safe loans. And then all of a sudden got millions of new customers who expected that 9% every month. And it's either lose those customers or go further down the risk curve to keep delivering it. And so that was done, though, probably without fraud, maybe negligence. But this time it's like, I mean, this guy was doing everything in his power to lie to anyone who could possibly give him money, including

foreign governments and foreign government officials who he literally bribed. Yeah. Speaking of government officials, the prosecution has tied these campaign finance contributions to the objective or one of the objectives, which Caroline testified about. And one of the objectives was to do in finance. His primary competitor is, she said, that's why he was buying influence or one of the reasons. And to be president. He said he had a 5% chance of being president of the United States, which was his ultimate goal. Right.

Yeah, that was a good one. And the other thing on Binance, really fascinating, Scott, is Caroline confirmed what we all knew or suspected, and that is that FTX customer funds were used for the buyout of CZ in 2021 to buy out his ownership in FTX, which is really, really interesting, Scott, because now it paints into a corner the FTX forces in the bankruptcy. I may be wrong. I've gotten so disillusioned watching that FTX bankruptcy and the bleeding of all the creditors like me. I can't stand to watch it.

You guys might get lucky though, man. Amorphic or whatever it's called, you guys might get lucky. Yeah, exactly. I'd rather be an FTX creditor right now than a Voyager creditor, which is a lot. Yeah, but I would say now you've got under oath a statement that the payoff to CZ is this point, because I think it would be really risky on their part to not pursue a claim of that magnitude where you've got testimony under oath. There went customer funds. Well, your job is to claw back those customer funds. So I don't know what's happening.

There could be a negotiation to give them the benefit of the doubt. Could be a negotiation going on. But now they're painted into a corner. They have got to pursue that. Yeah, but let me ask you this. We also know that customer funds were used for hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations. Haven't heard anyone talking about clawing those back yet. Isn't that equally as ripe fruit for John Ray as this Binance payment? 100%. I believe letters have been sent to some or all of the recipients. I haven't seen lawsuits

filed, but letters were sent by the John Ray, Sullivan, and Cromwell forces to people who received those campaign contributions. So I would expect that that money's got to come back in or people will get hammered for that, hopefully, in the next election. Yeah, I think so too. And it's just so crazy how many people were bribed or paid or donated to effective altruism, right? I mean, which I'm not. It's unfortunate for legitimate effective altruists that he gave them such a bad name. But anyone who knows about effective altruism, you earn as much money as you possibly can so that you can give back as much as you possibly can. But everybody who's talked about his effective altruism now has basically said that it was just part of the fraud. I mean, Ellison, she said that he originally was buying fancy sport cars and then returned them all and

got a Toyota Corolla because she thought it fit the image better. Right. So like this was all a contrived book like the good guy situation and was all bullshit. He wasn't trying to help anyone but himself. Yeah. You know, there, there, there's been some insight into the psyche of Sam when Caroline talked about expected value in making decisions decisions like what decision leads to the greatest return for me that i can then theoretically contribute to the world people who need it expected value and sam said you know when making that analysis things like morality and legality and right and wrong don't figure in into how do you maximize your expected value of your life and your efforts so that you can be an altruist and contribute it to the universe. Now, on this altruist thing, what is the end game here? That's what I think about. Okay. So he's very likely to

be convicted. I think his lawyers understand that and have tried to explain that to him. Going to trial against the government in a case like this is very, very rare. DOJ does not lose these cases. And by the way, people don't realize why the Southern District of New York is such a great place to go to be a prosecutor for whatever reason. Always win. And there's many theories. But this place that is known for progressive liberalism convicts like crazy in these cases.

They are a conviction-prone jurisdiction, and everybody knows it. So it's a great place to be a prosecutor. So you got to ask yourself, what is the end game? And the Hail Mary is maybe Sam can swing one or two of these jurors, but once he's convicted, I believe that there are still effective altruists out there who believe in Sam and will come up with some money. And I think the final play on the chessboard, it will be to go for some kind of pardon or commutation of sentence from the president. This is a prosecution in federal court. The president can pardon anybody convicted or charged in the federal system, not in the state system. And so I believe that's what he's going for. And if, if you play this out, this theory out a little bit, if Joe Biden does not run ultimately for reelection or if he loses, then between November of 2024 and January when he's out the next year, you know, we could have a Bill Clinton scenario where a number of pardons are given and it tarnishes the legacy.

But very briefly, I mean, who talks about the pardons that Bill Clinton handed out that were kind of puzzling? So I think that's probably the last play on the chessboard, and they'll hold out hope for that. And why I mentioned the effective altruist and all the money is, you know, Joe Biden. They want to have a Joe Biden family foundation that is well-funded, et cetera. The thing is, I don't disagree. That is definitely a left-field possibility,

which I think he could definitely be counting on. The pardon is the big kicker in any of these trials. You always see it. But I would think that with all the donations he did, all the ag he put on people's face, we have all these endless takes that these politicians are going to protect him. My gut says they want him buried as far under the jail and gone as fast as possible so they never have to hear about it again. I think the political connections and all of that logically plays against him, not for him, because the last thing they want is him running around, running his mouth, bringing in more attention to what happened. You can tell they've tried to bury the entire industry just to cover up every the connections with SBF. I don't think that that he's getting I think he's going to jail long time, 20, 30 years minimum. And I think he's going to stay there and we're not going to hear very much about him unless we see an Epstein.

But I don't really go down that rabbit hole. Well, look, totally agree with you. I mean, the optics of having received contributions from Sam, which Joe Biden, I think Sam was his second largest campaign contributor for the last election. The optics are horrible, but you just never know. In my career, I've seen a lot of things solved. And the way we describe it is this can be solved with a bag of money or a big bag of money. And so- Hidden customer funds that he still has in a foreign bank account. Yes.

Well, Scott, that's a really important point you just made. Money that he has squirreled away himself. forget about- How do you think he's defending himself with customer money? Here's the tell, Scott. He hasn't declared bankruptcy. Why? Because if you declare bankruptcy, you have to disclose where all of your assets are. And if you don't, you'll be prosecuted criminally. And that's one of the easier cases for prosecutors to bring. And they love bringing those cases. Boris Becker, the tennis player, did time for that. Lenny Dykstra, the baseball player, did time for hiding assets in his bankruptcy case. So

the fact that the guy has not declared bankruptcy is a real tell that it is likely that he has secreted away a significant amount of money. I'm not sure if you saw this. We were talking about clawbacks and the bankruptcy. This just dropped an hour ago. Court approved Genesis settlement of $175 million to FTX, expunges billions in claims. So as much as this seems like a crazy headline, how the hell did Genesis have to pay FTX money? It could have been billions, right? And this was basically like a very small settlement against what could have been multiple billions in claims. And I think it says they dropped three claims by FTX Trading,

six claims by Alameda Research, and six claims by West Realm Shires Services, which represents ftx us so this is some would say good news for creditors of ftx but i think most creditors are pissed off actually because they think it should have been a much bigger clawback or settlement right absolutely and uh you know that anthropic thing that you brought up is a big deal i mean that's a big number. It's like 4.5 or 5 billion if they get that $4 billion investment from Amazon and get that round at that valuation. It's crazy. You get that, and then you get the clawback from CZ, then Sam's petition for pardon is going to say, hey, lookie here. Nobody lost money, man. No, no losses. What do you know? No losses. Yeah, I asked Skrelli about that, by the way, because he and he aptly pointed out that he returned his customers a profit.

It has nothing to do with whether people lose or don't lose money if you've committed fraud. At least that's what he said. He said, listen, everybody made money. Didn't stop me from going to jail. Had nothing to do with my conviction. Nobody cared, right? He's like, but I didn't lose anyone's money. I got them, made them money.

Right, yeah. It's what you call an equitable argument. You know, I, you know, hey, Joe Biden, I shouldn't spend 50 years in jail. I mean, nobody was harmed. You know, and I helped, you know, recover the money or whatever. So I hope that doesn't happen. I think he needs to spend a lot of time in jail so others will see. And in the big picture,

I think this is a classic case of what Warren Buffett talks about know it's not until the tide goes out that you see who's been swimming without a bathing suit and when the crypto winter hit sam could no longer maintain being the heroic figure you know buying all sorts of stuff including celebrities uh and they scrambled and then they started breaking the law it looks like that's, to me, how it played out. Well, we all know that Sam was the one swimming naked and unfortunately probably doing it on a beautiful Bahamas beach with Carolyn Ellison and 17 tie hookers wallets or whatever this story is. It's just, the deeper you go into this,

it really is insane. So what's your final take before I let you go? How long do you think this trial will go? And do you think that we will see more? I guess the clawbacks to me and the bankruptcy are the real story here. Do you think we'll see more of these small Genesis-type settlements and start to see some of this money coming back? I mean, Voyager, actually, they have like a $400 million or $500 million claim

between Alameda and Voyager as well. Yeah, I do think you're going to see more settlements in the FTX bankruptcy. Typically, if you get sued in the bankruptcy court with bankruptcy judge presiding, you know you're going to lose. I handled many, many cases in the Lehman bankruptcy. And I remember going to that court in lower Manhattan and the judge, she felt like it's her duty to get money into this bankruptcy estate to pay creditors. And so any close call in a trial, tie goes to the debtors council. And so you will see more money, more settlements. I'm hopeful that people do recover in time a lot on the dollar. As far as the trial is concerned, it's going very fast.

I mean, opening statements of just 30 minutes. People thought this was going to be weeks, and it was like they were four days in and four hours, right? Yeah. Yeah, well, one of the odd things, Scott, is that these witnesses are being permitted to testify to the ultimate issue for the jury to decide. This is not typically appropriate. Witnesses are supposed to testify about facts. Hey, I had this meeting with Sam. He said this. I said this.

Here's a document. Yes, I recognize that document. I did this as a consequence of this instruction. But what they're saying is, Wang said, Sam and I committed wire fraud, mail fraud. He did a lot of crimes together. Caroline's first statements were Sam instructed me to commit a lot of crimes. Right. This is not actually permissible. This invades the province of the jury and is objectionable. So what you're going to see, I believe, is a conviction on most or all counts. And then you're going to see an appeal. And the real battle is going to be, does Sam get to go out on bail during the appeal?

And I think the answer will be no. He's going to have to stay in jail during appeal. And I do believe that the last Hail Mary attempt will be a pardon from Joe Biden. All right. Well, dude, it's great to have you back. Since we can't get you on Twitter, we got to have you here more. But I do hope that they,

I'm going to start seeing if we can dig up a contact there. It's crazy. You didn't mention the part where somebody had taken over your account. Like they did all these other people, John Deaton and Peter Brandt, and was trying to tweet scams. So I remember trying to tell people not to fall for the scam. I was assuming that's why they banned your account and you were just never able to get it back. But to your point, every fake metal law man in the world is still there. You're gone. Everyone's still there,

which is what happened to me on Instagram. Every scammer is still there, but I got kicked off by a scammer. It's really great. Yeah. Well, man, we got to get,

yeah. For whoever's watching. Yeah. There's dozens of scam metal law men. Not me. I'm the guy with the blue check who was banned from X. But I remember when a blue check actually meant you were you. And not just that you had $8. You won't get into the nuance of Twitter X. Thank you so much, James, man. Always a pleasure.

Awesome being on with you, Scott. All right. I'll do it again soon. Later. All right, guys, before I bring on Dan, I just want to mention one or two stories that we had here. It'll be really quick. And then we'll talk about markets with him and these predictions about Bitcoin and Ethereum. And of course, the fact that CPI just came in kind of hot. There's one story I want to talk about that's just blowing my mind. First, this isn't the actual story. This is just the, what we'll call it, the appetizer, the amuse-bouche, if you will. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and five other senators want the IRS to expedite crypto reporting requirements currently slated for 2026. We've reported widely on the fact that there'll be new IRS rules in 2026 for crypto reporting. Okay, great, fine.

It's going to get bad in three years. But they want to speed this up because they believe that by not speeding up, they could lose 50 billion in annual tax revenue, which last I checked is like the increase in our debt in three days. I mean, we're literally increasing our debt by tens of billions of dollars a day if you look at it. So it seems like a drop in the bucket. But we know that Elizabeth Warren has the anti-crypto army. We know that all these people want to close tax loopholes that don't exist on crypto investors. But the kicker right now, that is the story that I want to go. She said it's time tag now. And then Elizabeth Warren further elaborated on her stance on social media, referring to cryptocurrency as, quote, the not so secret financial weapon funding groups like Hamas. Because of course, you can't let a good conflict go by without taking advantage of it as a politician

to make your false claims. But yes, Hamas has raised millions in crypto donations. This is the Wall Street Journal report. You guys may have read and seen it, which everybody knew, 93 million to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hamas received about 41 million in the same time frame. What you might not read about in this story that was widely reported in April, but seemingly forgotten because people have the memory of goldfish, is that Hamas armed wing announces suspension of Bitcoin fundraising. Why? Hamas literally stopped taking Bitcoin donations because it was too transparent and the people sending the donations were being easily tracked down by governments. They do not take crypto for financing since April and will never do it again moving forward. Did you guys see that part of the story

in the Elizabeth Warren comment? Did you see that part of the story in the Wall Street Journal article. They mentioned it briefly. Yeah. So just so you know, crypto is not so anonymous. It's very transparent. And even Hamas won't take the millions of dollars that they couldn't have gotten in Bitcoin. Huge nothing burger, big surprise. I'm going to go ahead and bring on Dan now so we can talk about what's happening in markets. What is up, Dan? How are you doing today? Good, Scott. How are you doing? I'm pretty good. I wanted to talk to you about CPI, obviously, just came in. Here's the numbers. Core was 0.3, expected 0.3, previous 0.3. So no movement in core at all. CPI month over month was at 0.4%, which was expected at 0.3, but still down from 0.6. Seems like we've got kind of a mixed

bag here. And year over year, 3.7, expected 3.6, previous 3.7. We also saw PPI coming in kind of hot, right? So there is a narrative now that maybe this dip in inflation, the drop is getting sticky and a little more stubborn, right? Have you taken a look at these numbers? I know you're primarily a technical analyst, but still, this is clearly going to impact markets. Yeah, definitely keeping an eye on them. And again, right now, fundamental bears are frustrated just in the short term because the market has bounced a good bit the past few days. And this is the spot where technically speaking, I'm keeping an eye out for some daily consolidation.

We're coming straight off the low in some of these names and we need daily uptrends to confirm still. And so you have this hot PPI yesterday and now a hot CPI and we're still right at the top of this bounce. And it's almost like, all right, why aren't we dropping when these numbers are supposed to be or are coming in higher than ideal. And so it was just a reminder for me, like, okay, be aware of this stuff, but the truth is in the prices. And so keep an eye on those trends because right now, the NASDAQ is trying to keep this longer term consolidation healthy, which in this moment, it still is. And so it's a waiting game for the bears. When is this stuff going to matter again? Yeah. I just opened the QQQ chart because obviously I was interviewing him as the market

opened. I mean, still just pumping. And then NASDAQ is way up today again. We broke through the 50-day on a five-day rager here. This is in the midst of a war. What you could argue are poor, repeatedly poor inflation numbers, some mildly negative comments from Fed governors. I mean, we seem to be in that time in markets right now where good news doesn't matter, bad news doesn't matter, news just doesn't matter. Markets are just on their way. Yeah. And we have a recent

history lesson with Ukraine seeing like, okay, the market cared about it initially, and then we kept getting the headlines and less and less, it just cares less and less. And so I think we're going to see the same thing in the current situation as far as the market is concerned. And yeah, right now the NASDAQ is four and a half percent from 22 month highs and it's 5% plus from where we were a week ago. So we're closer to 22 month highs than we are to the lows of two weeks ago in the NASDAQ. So again, real lows. Yeah. Yeah. I'm staying open-minded where these are bull flags until, you know, these are monthly bull flags until the bears tell me, no, they're not monthly bull flags. And right now the bears are not doing that. Google and

Meta just hit 52 week highs. And so, uh,'s- I sold a bunch of Meta at 314 and I was feeling pretty good. Now it's above that. I still think it's going down, but hey. Yeah. It's the kind of thing where, again, it's just frustrated fundamental bears and you just got to stick with the price action. It's just, there's so many times in my career that affirmed to me, yes, be aware of the fundamentals, don't be oblivious to them. But there's so many times that the day-to-day movement of these numbers are not dependent on the fundamentals. Yeah. I mean, that's meta. There you go. I mean, breaking the... I mean, it's been multi-year highs, right? I guess it was back in early 2022, we were at this price, but here you go. I mean, making a new yearly high and retracing all of that. I'm still holding half the position, luckily, but pretty crazy to see that in the face of all these things that's happening.

But meanwhile, our favorite clearly uncorrelated for now asset, Bitcoin, trading sideways and slightly down. Right. And I still call it sideways, to be quite honest. But I do have to be cognizant of like this way. We kind of have a weekly evening star here. Technically, evening stars generally need a gap, guys. You consider a candle here, then usually have a gap up to some sort of doji or, you know, gravestone or something. But you don't get that on Bitcoin because 24-7 trading. The next candle always opens right at the end of the other candle. So you don't get those weekend gaps and things that you see. But I mean, you can argue we're not in an uptrend. so maybe it's not that impactful, but I mean,

a big green candle followed by a candle like this, and then a down candle that goes about halfway if it closed here. I mean, this is one of the most classical bearish topping patterns and it's right at the 200 MA. Yeah. I mean, that's a longer term head and shoulders. And so for me, it's just like the NASDAQ. It's okay, bears, prove to, this is not a bull flag for Bitcoin right now. It's like, okay, bulls, you got some work to do prove to me that this is not a long-term head and shoulders pattern forming the right shoulder right now. And as you mentioned, you know, it's, you know, the, the, the correlation aspect out the window. Absolutely. You know, we're, we're not correlated to much right now. And so then I shifted to sentiment, like, okay,

we're not correlated, but there's sentiment for the broader market that matters. And now the last week, it's like, okay, we finally got the dollar pulling back for four days. We got the broader market bouncing for four days. And during those four days, Bitcoin has been doing nothing but dropping. And so it's like, all right, sentiment's out the window now too.

So it's definitely just doing its own thing. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. Of course, we have the story then. And I'm going to ask you to bring your charts up too, because I would love to see your takes. But I just love these. Ether could hit 8K by end of 2026. Let's throw out a big arbitrary number to get the press by standard charter. These are the same guys, I think, who said that, well, it's at 1600 now. I think I said 4,000 by the end of next year. And they're the same ones who made the $160,000 prediction for Bitcoin. But I mean, their premise, I think, is pretty good. Proliferation of NFTs,

decentralized finance, significant demand, improvements in the network, all the things. But I look at the Ethereum chart and right now, I don't know if there's EtherUSD. I see it breaking down, not heading towards 8,000 at the moment. Yeah. It's always a click game. You put the big number up, you'll get the click because the people that aren't all into technical analysis or following on a daily basis, it's opium. It's just, oh, if I click this and read this, it'll make me feel good. And I'll imagine the future and I'll think about how much money I'll have. And it's just the media cycle. But it's important to always take those things with a grain of salt, as we know. Yeah. So let's see. You got any charts to share? I would love to see what you're

thinking. Because I did a whole thing actually the other day, kind of thinking that TLT looked bottomy, yields looked toppy, dollar kind of looked toppy, that we could finally be seeing a little relief for bonds, which obviously aligns with seeing what's happening in other markets. But you got Bitcoin here. So this is what the, is this the monthly? This is the two week, just condensing it a little and again, just highlighting that's the potential head and shoulders that I'm looking at. We know 25,000 or just under 25,000 is the wall in the sand, the line in the sand that everybody's looking at. And so that is the must-hold level. That's incredible to me, by the way,

because that was also the level that made the higher high for the first time in the entire bearish market structure. So there's not just this head and shoulders, but there's so many reasons that 25K is the support. Yeah. And from a technical perspective, there's so many times where you'll be on the verge of a breakdown and the Bulls will play defense and that launches confidence. And just a quick example, you know, PLTR on the weekly timeframe here was the same thing where we had, you know, our left shoulder, our head, our right shoulder, and this was a double bottom to the penny. And it was, you know, this chart looked like we're about to roll over into longer term downtrends. And the bulls just said, no, we're holding this line in the sand. It's just like a trench that, you know, we're fighting over. And as soon as we hold it, it's a big turnaround. And so, you know, Bitcoin had that hold and shift.

And so, OK, now the question is, what can you do with that bulls? Can you follow through? Can we confirm a weekly uptrend and hold that level? Because again, if you break this support from here, you're going to see a lot of despair and a lot of bare confidence. And it's going to be, uh-oh, are we heading back to 15,000 if that level breaks? And if that level breaks, it's not a sure thing that we're headed to 15,000 by any means, but I just know the sentiment that will come to the space if that level breaks. I'm literally already hearing it just on the dips over the last day that 15K is there, people drawing big lines on their charts and stuff saying that that's where price is going. All right. My Monday guest, Dave Weisberger and

Mike McGlone have a steak dinner bet. Mike says it hits 15 and Dave says it hits 40. So whichever one it hits first, whenever that may be, somebody's buying a steak. I'll end up buying both. I mean, honestly, for me, it's like if the NASDAQ is a monthly bull flag, then we're going to 40. And if the NASDAQ is going to keep the weekly downtrend going and enter a long-term tightening range, then we're probably heading back down to the teens. And really, again, that's the sentiment factor for me. Barring any headline in Bitcoin with ETF development or anything like that, I do think it is just a sentiment game. And right now, we're just at such a fork in the road for markets in general, where, as you mentioned, the dollar is bouncing right now. The big question is, can we confirm the daily downtrend? because the last time we had a big drop the bears failed that daily downtrend and we get the

continuation and so the 10 years doing the same thing you know we have to see what ma is that by the way that it's bouncing right off of uh ema 26 26 period ema yeah i was gonna say those both bounced there both those moves yeah yeah so have to confirm the daily downtrend, just like, I mean, you know, the S&P 500, big bounce, have to confirm an uptrend. So that's really the next thing that I'm looking at into the end of October, really just into next week, is do we confirm daily uptrends? Because there's a lot of sectors, and you know, we talk about the NASDAQ is strong. NASDAQ and semiconductors are clearly the lead bulls, but you have small caps, IWM, daily trend change has to confirm here. You've got the financial sector have to confirm a daily uptrend if its move is going to get

any follow through. So it's really XLF Financials, XLV Healthcare, IWM, Russell 2000, all these names into next week must confirm daily uptrends. And a lot of that's going to be earnings. We got the financial sector starting earnings tomorrow. And then next thing you know, the next couple of weeks, we're in earnings season. And so again, it's that fork in the road where the S&P 500 is either going to be a three-month tightening range, most of 2024, or that monthly cup and handle to new all-time highs. And so many fundamental bears hear the word all-time highs and say, what are you out of your mind? And I understand that perspective, but if you knew what I knew about charts,

it's definitely a possibility. Saying it's not possible is an over-emotional reaction being tied to your bias, right? And even because at this point, you have enough evidence, even that if you think all the data and news is showing you down, that the market hasn't been responding to data and news. So, you know, it really goes back to, you know, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. It's one of the most prescient quotes ever because this is one of those moments where you can just see it. Yeah. There are so many things you can point to in either direction, but there's so many reasons bears should be right. Right.

And honestly, ever since COVID and even a little bit pre-COVID, it's almost like I view this as what's been happening the last three years, macroeconomically and fundamentally, as one of the biggest advertisements for technical analysis, because inflation's going up, but gold isn't. The metals aren't doing what they're supposed to. And there's just so many confused fundamental traders the last three years. And it's just like, hey, check out the charts. They can give you some clarity. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything that you're actually actively trading right now? I'm pretty surprised that we saw that move up on CPI, but now I bet we end up with a down day because that first move is usually wrong. So my bet is that we erase all those gains and end up down today. We're due for daily consolidation for sure. I'm keeping an eye if the bulls are able

to confirm those daily uptrends that I just talked about. I'm watching these beat up names like AI, which had its run and has been pulling back and doing nothing for a couple of months. I grabbed that one on Monday and exited a good bit into the pop on Tuesday. But just keeping an eye where names that they are looking, a monthly high or low is the most likely scenario here for me. So just keeping an eye to see if the market does start to get a little bit more risk on and does start to put some pressure on the bears that have been right for a couple of months. Just keeping an eye out on these, PayPal, PayPal has been so beat up. It's just me watching. If there's a sentiment shift,

I'm watching for the names that have been really beat up the last couple of months to just see some relief rallies. But other than that, it's the metals as well. Can the metals confirm a daily uptrend off this bottom? It's really a prove it. Bulls had a nice past week on a lot of these things, stocks and metals, but now it's time to prove it once this temporary top is hit with that trend change. I had Texas West Capital, Christopher Inks on yesterday and he showed me the dollar general chart. Sometimes, I don't know if you ever look at dollar general DG, but sometimes you see something and it just kind of blows your mind. I mean, it seems like dollar general should be doing fine. These downtrends and some of these in this bull market are just astounding to me. Although this, I mean, it seems like Dollar General should be doing fine. These downtrends and some of these in this bull market are just astounding to me.

Although this, I mean, you're looking at, this is the weekly, you're looking at weekly RSI at 15. That's not something you see. Monthly RSI at 23. I mean, this thing looks wrecked here in December, but I could see a big bounce on something like this. He was pointing out that he kind of liked it here for a bounce, but wants to see it a bit higher first.

But man, like what the hell? As you mentioned, again, there's so many little pockets of the market that have been crushed the last month. And it's almost like it's really the structure of the weighting of these ETFs of SPY and QQQ that people look at, oh, it's the Magnificent Seven that are holding things up. To a certain degree, it is. I mean, you look at utilities. The utilities had an all out. They've recovered since, but all out dump to, you know, multiple year lows.

And right now there's, there's these med tech names, uh, because of some drug studies, these med tech names are collapsing. There's just these little pockets of, of a significant amount of weakness. And so, you know, you look at if, if everything were even weighted, I understand the argument for the bears, but it's also the kind of thing like, well, if everything were even weighted, we'd be down a lot much. But that's not the way the world works. That's not how the things are structured. So we have to deal with what we have and not the what ifs. So until we see the major names, as long as Google and Meta are hitting 52 week highs, you can't see the NASDAQ drop in any meaningful way because of the

weight that they have. Yeah, I agree. Anything else you're looking at here? We're good for the week. Good patient. Again, prove it Bulls. Prove it with the daily trend change. I'm ready for you to prove it. I'm watching for those daily higher lows is the most likely scenario. But not going to forget that the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ are in weekly downtrends right now. So whether or not we confirm this daily uptrend or not is going to have a significant impact on the next two weeks. All right, man. Always awesome to have you. Thank you for showing up every Thursday and sharing your analysis and thoughts. We find it extremely valuable.

And I know the audience loves it, man. So everybody, please follow Dan. Obviously, everything's down in the description and also, you know, check out his channel and check out, uh, his group because, uh, that's where you get the real alpha. I would imagine. Yes, sir. Appreciate it, Scott. Thanks for having me. All right, man. Thank you very much. All right, guys, that is basically all I have for you today. We will be running it back tomorrow with the Friday five, myself and Nathaniel Whittemore, AKA NLW. Cause that's what we do. Heading over to Twitter spaces, of course, now as usual. Yeah, man, it's going to be a good one, I'm sure. Always a pleasure to join you guys. Sorry,

we had to talk about Sam Bankman-Fried today, but it felt like it was time. I'll see you guys tomorrow.