Gold, Silver, and Currencies

My client told me yesterday that years ago, he and his wife traveled from Alaska back to his childhood home to accept an award for excellence in dentistry. Home for him was LA—not that LA—Shreveport. The ceremony was in New Orleans. The plan was to borrow one of his sister’s cars in Shreveport and drive to New Orleans. Before they drove off, he asked his buddy if he needed anything. “Would you mind picking up some alligator meat?” he asked. “No problem.” Driving home from New Orleans, they took a left into the swamp, walked into the store, and said he was there to pick up alligator … [Read more...]

After the catastrophic collapse of the world's second largest cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, the SEC's Chairman, Gary Gensler, has signaled that his commission will be taking a harder line on cryptocurrency exchanges, tokens, hedge funds, and broker-dealers. Gensler made the comments about cryptocurrencies in an interview with Yahoo! Finance. When interviewer Jennifer Schonberger asked Gensler why the SEC didn't enforce the rules on the books regarding the collapse of FTX, Gensler responded: We are enforcing. The Securities and Exchange Commission, I couldn't be prouder. And it started under … [Read more...]

The barrage of mishaps and catastrophes in the cryptocurrency market just keeps on going. Following the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX, other crypto-related companies have seen their fortunes falter. BlockFi, a crypto lender, has filed for bankruptcy, Bitfront, another crypto exchange, is shutting down, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has been shoring up its "Secure Asset Fund," and in the last couple weeks, at least three big crypto players have died in mysterious circumstances. It's been a rough month for the industry. Now, crypto owners who spent big … [Read more...]

Investors in cryptocurrency on the FTX exchange weren't just taken in by the celebrities they saw pitching it to them during the Super Bowl. There were self-styled "financial influencers" who also pushed crypto onto unsuspecting investors eager to beat the zero-interest rate environment. Despite Tom Brady's endorsement of FTX, investing is supposed to be boring, not run like a fantasy football team. Listen to what crypto buyers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal have to say about their involvement with FTX: “My blood is boiling,” said Matthew Way, a fundraiser for an Illinois orchestra … [Read more...]

The fall of crypto exchange FTX is a brutal lesson in fear and greed. Not the fear of losing but the fear of missing out or FOMO. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBM) said this on the podcast “Odd Lots” describing how venture capitalists pick investments (highlighted by Jason Zweig in his WSJ column the “Intelligent Investor”): You get a bizarre f—ing process that does not look like the paragon of efficient markets that you might expect. [Venture capitalists] see what all their friends are chattering about, and their friends keep talking about this company…and they start FOMOing [feeling the … [Read more...]