Topley’s Top 10 – May 6, 2021

Author

Matt Topley
May 06, 2021

1. Etherum  +1200% 1 Year

Bitcoin is now less than 50% of crypto market cap

2. DOGE $87B Market Cap…Larger than Fedex, GM, Marriott?

3. Bitcoin is coming to hundreds of U.S. banks this year, says crypto custody firm NYDIG

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KEY POINTS

  • For the first time, customers of some U.S. banks will soon be able to buy, hold and sell bitcoin through their existing accounts, according to crypto custody firm NYDIG.

  • Banks are asking for bitcoin because they can see their customers sending dollars to Coinbase and other crypto exchanges, according to Yan Zhao, president of NYDIG.

  • After rolling out the initial bitcoin product, NYDIG plans on other services, including debit card rewards paid in bitcoin and a new type of bank account that is FDIC insured, but pays interest in bitcoin, he said.

Bitcoin may be taking another step toward mainstream adoption, CNBC has learned.

For the first time, customers of some U.S. banks will soon be able to buy, hold and sell bitcoin through their existing accounts, according to crypto custody firm NYDIG.

The company, a subsidiary of $10 billion New York-based asset manager Stone Ridge, has partnered with fintech giant Fidelity National Information Services to enable U.S. banks to offer bitcoin in coming months, according to the two firms.

Hundreds of banks are already enrolled in the program, according to Patrick Sells, head of bank solutions at NYDIG. While the firm is in discussions with some of the biggest U.S. banks, many of the lenders that have agreed to participate are smaller institutions like Suncrest, a California-based community bank with seven branches.

“What we’re doing is making it simple for everyday Americans and corporations to be able to buy bitcoin through their existing bank relationships,” Sells said. “If I’m using my mobile application to do all of my banking, now I have the ability to buy, sell and hold bitcoin.”

Until now, bitcoin adopters have relied on apps from a new generation of fintech players like free trading brokerage Robinhood, payments giants PayPal and Square, or crypto-centric firms like Coinbase. Banks, on the other hand, have steered clear of bitcoin for retail customers, only recently announcing plans to allow rich wealth management clients to be able to wager on the cryptocurrency.

But banks are now asking for bitcoin because they can see their customers sending dollars to Coinbase, Kraken and other crypto exchanges, according to Yan Zhao, president of NYDIG.

“This is not just the banks thinking that their clients want bitcoin, they’re saying `We need to do this, because we see the data,’” Zhao said. “They’re seeing deposits going to the Coinbases and Galaxies and Krakens of the world.”

4. Mega-Cap Tech

Michael Batnick -The Irrelevant Investor 

Look at Size of Amazon Web Services Alone vs. Some Market Giants

Let’s look at Amazon Web Services, for example. That segment reported $48 billion in revenue over the last 12 months.  AWS is growing 30% a year and has 30% operating margins. Given the market environment, I think a 35x multiple on earnings is reasonable. Apple, for comparison purposes, has similar operating margins but isn’t growing nearly as fast, is trading at 28x earnings. If we assume that AWS’s net income is $15 billion and slap a 35 multiple on that, we get to ~$500 billion, a third of Amazon’s market cap today.

I don’t know what slows down big tech’s growth, but I’m not so sure regulation would do it.

Found at Crossing Wall Street Blog http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/

5. Virtual Health Stock TDOC Health Covid Favorite…. Hit Above 300 to Start 2021….$156 Last.

DescriptionTeladoc Health, Inc. provides virtual healthcare services on a business-to-business basis in the United States and internationally. It covers various clinical conditions, including non-critical, episodic care, chronic, and complicated cases like cancer and congestive heart failure, as well as offers telehealth solutions, chronic condition management, expert medical services, behavioral health solutions, guidance and support, and platform and program services. It serves health employers, health plans, hospitals, health systems, and insurance and financial services companies. The company offers its products and services under the Teladoc, Livongo, Advance Medical, Best Doctors, BetterHelp, and HealthiestYou brands. The company was formerly known as Teladoc, Inc. and changed its name to Teladoc Health, Inc. in August 2018. Teladoc Health, Inc. was Incorporated in 2002 and is headquartered in Purchase, New York.

TDOC -50% from highs still way above pre-covid levels

6. Hedge funds had become ‘extreme’ sellers of stocks even before Yellen’s interest-rate remarks. Here’s why.

Critical information for the trading day

As a former Federal Reserve chair herself, now Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen should have known that her comments about the possibility of a need for an interest-rate hike would send markets into a tizzy, and by the end of the day she had walked back her remarks. No matter, as they’d brought about a classic rotation — the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.37% dived 1.9%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.29% actually rose slightly.

What was interesting was that the bond market didn’t follow suit. The 10-year yield on Treasury inflation-protected securities actually fell, to negative 0.81% — nearly a three-month low. It is noteworthy that the market for interest rates didn’t see anything terribly new or interesting in Yellen’s remarks about interest rates. The currency market wasn’t volatile. So maybe the stock market was vulnerable to selling.

Bank of America reports that, of its clients, hedge funds have been “extreme” sellers of stocks. The rolling four-week average flows for hedge funds were the lowest in the history of this series, which dates back to 2008 — and were three standard deviations below the average.

The hedge-fund selling was most concentrated in the communications-services and information-technology sectors, according to the BofA data — i.e., the tech winners that have thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic. Who’s buying? Retail clients were the only group to buy U.S. equities for the third week in a row and have been net buyers for 10 straight weeks, per Bank of America.

Why would hedge funds be getting nervous? Well, the April payrolls report on Friday is expected to be a seven-digit affair, after nearly topping a million in March. Even with Federal Reserve policy makers at pains to dismiss signs of surging inflation, they can’t ignore a rapidly healing labor market, so official data showing a surge in jobs creation will inevitably cause market discussion of when the central bank will pull back on its bond buying.

“As usual, it looks like the connection between legacy ‘duration proxy’ tech sector/’secular growth’ is the risk into the next two months of ‘peak’ U.S. economic data base-effect, with this week’s heavy U.S. data slate culminating in the CRITICAL Friday NFP, which is expected to be a WHOPPING +++ print and is set to dictate the timing of Fed ‘tapering’ socialization,” said Nomura Securities strategist Charlie McElligott.

How whopping? Steve Englander, head of global G-10 currency strategy at Standard Chartered, said a payrolls number in excess of 2 million would scare investors, and anything above 1.5 million would cause “uncertainty.” In other words, the risk is that by Friday, traders might be talking like Yellen did on Tuesday.

7. Muni Bonds See Longest Winning Streak Over Treasuries Since 2014

8. Most Visited Websites on the Internet….Yahoo Still Top 10

9. Food Inflation at Supermarket

10. This Is The Best Time To Do Anything: 6 Powerful Secrets From Research

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