So there's been a lot of question about whether or not we are potentially at a bottom and the chart that's being brought up. Is this right here and so the comparison is to the 2018 crisis that we had, which 2018 it's worth noting. This was where we had raised interest rates at the end of 2018. We had now raised interest rates to uh 2.25 to 2.5 and uh this.

This was, you know, quite aggressive, jerome powell kept hiking. This was around the same time and it was also jerome. Powell was there then uh. This was when donald trump was in office, though, and donald trump said: jerome powell is going to get fired if he doesn't start lowering rates and there was a lot of pressure on jerome powell to stop raising rates and it wasn't until the market sort of hit.

This bottom over here that something special happened and what happened was around december 18th of 2018 jerome powell said all right. Look. We told you that we were going to do three rate increases in 2019. Now, what we're actually going to do is we're just going to do two, and so that was seen as a positive u-turn by the federal reserve and when we get these positive.

U terms from the fed oftentimes, we can see a potential bottom depending on how uns or how surprising that positive u-turn is, you know, otherwise, it's not a u-turn right like if the federal reserve - and this is worth noting if the federal reserve is very consistent - that Uh, you know they're positive, positive, positive, positive, then then, continuing on a positive trajectory is is nothing uh uh. No, no, no excitement to the market provides nothing in the market. The problem is, is when the federal reserve is tightening, tightening, tightening, tightening or maybe not so much the problem. The u-turn is when the fed goes.

Okay, we're not going to tighten as much. You know that kind of u-turn or change in direction is good. Now, to some degree folks are saying: maybe that's what we just had as well, because the federal reserve, starting in december and january, said okay, we've got massive problems with inflation. Here, we're going to have to tighten substantially we're going to have to tighten rates uh we're going to have to run off the balance sheet faster than ever before, because it's larger than ever before.

We have more mixed uh durations within it, especially more shorter term bonds. So we're going to run this off faster, we have uh, you know a situation where we're so well below the neutral rate that we've got a lot of work to do to raise rates quickly and so they've made these these potential allusions to uh bill. Ackman's style quote shock and awe where you come in with let's say a 50 basis, point hike right away, half percent or maybe even 100 basis, point hike right away and and then you hike thereafter right. This is kind of the feeling that we were getting from december and january.

Well, then, we got a little bit of a u-turn and that u-turn happened on february 24th. That was when russia actually decided to invade uh ukraine, because this became a signal of well. The federal reserve should go more dovish here if, indeed, war leads to a temporary style of inflation, a second type of inflation in commodities, and we end up going to a more dovish fed. Then then, we're going to end up seeing a fed u-turn, which is essentially what we saw a few days ago.

Uh when jerome powell said hey, you know what we're gon na we're gon na hold back here uh. This is a game. Changer is essentially what he said: okay, so now, let's compare this so we've had u-turns in each scenario. Could that potentially mean we're in a similar place here? Let's take a look at this, so this year is 2018 and uh.

What folks are drawing is that we sort of had our lower high right here, which you see that here, which is a fall uh by your your second lower high and then you've got your lower double top, which they're marking as sort of here in 2018. And here in 2020, so you can kind of see that comparison in the two charts here then we've got the what they call the final capitulation, which comes potentially after this another lower high which they're marking here. So here's your double, which we had right here, another lower high, that kind of little bounce right there and then potentially one more large drop and then off to the moon right, that's sort of the comparison of this okay. So what are my thoughts on this? Well, my thoughts are that so far it looks really nicely aligned to 2018.

We did get a federal reserve somewhat u-turn, but if i had to personally compare the styles of u-turns, we got here, i would say: in 2018 we had a fed that was going in this direction and then was kind of like uh. Let's go this way, they didn't go full accommodative right, it's not like they. They said. That's it.

We're not doing interest rate increases anymore right uh. So we did get that positive view. Turn up. I'd say today with j-pal calling a war, a game changer.

We got a little bit more of this kind of an inflection where it's kind of like okay, we're just gon na we're gon na chill a little bit. We're gon na be a little bit more patient, as opposed to saying we're going to raise rates less. So i i don't think we got as much of a federal reserve u-turn when you sort of overlaid that onto these charts, not only do i not think we got as much of a fed a u-turn, but in 2018 the only show in town was the fed That was the only thing that was keeping markets freaked right uh. It was the fact that we were consistently raising rates.

I mean we saw that pain earlier in may of 2018 when real estate prices, all of a sudden, fell like 10. In the matter of of of six weeks i mean it was terrible. All of a sudden people were freaking out now they recovered by the end of the year, but there was definitely a freak out during the year, so it was wild, but anyway uh. The only thing that we're paying attention to in 2018 was rates.

Now, we've got a lot more. We've got substantially high inflation. We've got this new form of what will probably be transitory inflation, which is higher oil prices and a very high oil price. I mean it's an oil shock and we've still got the geopolitical concern of how long this war will last with russia and ukraine and how much it could spill over to nato countries as well as how damaged is the global economy going to get from all of The sanctions that we have imposed uh see you know i regularly mention that uh folks, folks ask me they say well kevin i mean.

Is it really that big of a deal that uh that russia is getting sanctioned? I mean it's not going to make me, spend less money right and i think it's so it's it's kind of easy for us to separate ourselves from that, because we forget that wait. A minute, uh apple is going to be losing money because of russia. Burberry: ea hermes, uh h m ikea nike under armour visa mastercard. These are massive companies and they're way more than even this uh youtube facebook, twitter, you name it.

There are uh dozens to potentially hundreds of companies that are losing money and no longer contributing to global gdp in that that region, and so for global economy. When we consider the velocity of money right, one dollar spent is five dollars of money for other people. It's not good, so you would see some kind of slowdown. So as much as i want to look at this, this chart that somebody sent over and say, oh yeah.

This is definitely uh. That's it. You know we're. We've got maybe one more hard downturn here and then we're off to the moon.

I don't necessarily believe that this is the case uh, because we have so many more things going on now and so many more uncertainties now. I do hope that this is true, but i don't want to plan for this, so the way i would invest for this is, i would still take the take advantage of buying the dip when there are opportunities like in fact i mean even today. I don't know if tesla's rebounding now, let's take a look at it. I know tess is still down about two percent.

So even today, you've got tesla sitting at uh. 787. I'd still take opportunities to nibble up these things with cash around, but i would also follow what we've regularly been talking about on the channel, which is uh stay away for the time being, at least from margin, stay away from speculative options. Speculative options remember: these are going to be your your, like short term, call options.

Your really bullish kind of options, or your really negative, puts i really think buying options in this market is, is just terrible with uh with course, members we'll regularly look at the historic volatility and uh we'll see with historic volatility. Okay, how you know are we buying high? Are we buying low, not just in price but in historic volatility? Uh and - and we can chart this out and uh it's it's right now. The premiums for most options are absolutely insane. I mean they already price in such substantial moves.

It's not the easiest to make money in unless uh, unless of course you get lucky and then and then you know we yolo into let's say uh and then then you just have to realize it's a yolo right. You yolo into wheat when i first mentioned it uh back over here and uh. You know obviously you're gon na you're gon na do quite well. I don't think the market priced in all of this kind of 50 move, but 20 of it may have been, and you start getting a down day like today.

It wouldn't be surprising to see a little bit of a volatility crush too, and then you see a lot of uh a lot of that that built-in premium going so uh. That's it again going back to this right here uh. I would love to say that we're close to that bottom like that we've drawn out on this chart here, but i think, there's a lot more uncertainty and that it really wouldn't surprise me at all to see 2020 here. Let's draw it on this one to end up.

You know at five years from now, we look back and 2020 ended up being uh. You know what was 2020. I think the spy did like 16 or something like that right for the s p. 500.

I think in 21 we ended up doing something i should do positive there. We go something like uh 26, even though we quickly gave a lot of that up at the beginning of 2021 right. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see 2022 actually be a negative spy here, uh, where who knows? Maybe it's down three percent or four percent, or something like that wouldn't surprise me so that to me is, is based on all of the uncertainties that we still have in 2022, especially making sure that inflation actually goes down, because what, if it doesn't you know, then We potentially have to price in the fact that you know paul, volcker could show up again uh, which, if you don't remember paul volcker, is of course the federal reserve, chairperson, that we had in the early 80s, who raised rates to 15 16 to stamp out really High inflation essentially forced a recession. The federal reserve can do that.

They can force a recession on us and it's so easy to forget that that the fed can just like at the drop of a hat. They can say that you know what for the greater good of our currency and our country, we need to force a recession. People make up crazy for saying that they're, like oh my gosh. Why would the federal reserve ever force a recession? People are going to lose their jobs yeah, but you have two choices: if you let high inflation uh like it was in the late 70s and early 80s become anchored, the expectation of high inflation get anchored and you essentially lead to potentially runaway hyperinflation, then uh, then What could happen is you could have a total regime collapse of the u.s dollar and if you have a collapse of the u.s dollar, then the united states loses much more power in the world.

It's no longer traded as the oil dollar. It's no longer the denominated currency of the swift banking system. It's no longer the world's reserve currency uh everybody's lost trust in the u.s government. I mean you could go from the number one economy to you know a few notches down very very quickly.

If you have uh currency regime collapse, and so this is where the federal reserve looks at that, and they would rather say you know what time to force a recession. That'll remove inflation, because the way to get rid of inflation is to reduce demand substantially. If we over reduce demand, that's okay, that's better than a regime collapse of the dollar and don't think that bitcoin is going to come in and save the day. Uh there's yeah as much as i love, blockchain and cryptocurrency.

Don't get me wrong. I just really don't see at any point uh the federal reserve giving up control of uh of their currency, certainly not in the next uh 50 years. It would be very, very interesting. I think they'll have their own digital currencies at that uh, but anyway uh.

You know, as i always like to say, if any of that makes you nervous get life insurance in as little as five minutes by going to mackkin.com live, but speaking of bitcoin, let's take a quick look at uh btc, which is uh. Of course, one of our amazing sponsors uh really cool ceo as well by the way, but let's take a look at btc, so you can sign up for ftx link down below, but take a look at this we've really been trying to push for for 40k here, But it's been rough, the last few days, mostly because we've been pricing in this oil disaster when we started pricing in this oil disaster, that's when we fell down here from from our 44k uh well under our 40 000, again uh, and so we've had essentially this Disaster here, where we've had these lower lows, uh and we're slowly starting to recover because of the fear of oh my gosh, what could 130 per barrel oil mean for us? What could 200 oil mean for us, even though that's probably a little bit more fear-mongerish now you've got jp morgan calling for 200. You've got goldman sachs calling for 180., even though i think that's more fear-mongerish, it's definitely being priced in, and it just reiterates to us again that no btc is not our inflation, hedge uh. It is not our uh.

It is not our opportunity to to get away from risk; it is another form of risk. Now i will say it has performed better than some other assets risk assets since the beginning of the year, which is nice uh. It certainly hasn't performed anywhere nearly near as poorly as a lot of the specs that we've seen the uh, maybe high growth but low profit companies. I mean you look at some like, let's say: uh, zoom or snowflake or again the spax uh, there's been some serious pain and btc has performed a lot better than those.

Although then again, you could look at the alt coins and kind of compare the alts to the specs and you start seeing a very similar story. So those are my thoughts on this chart which i got a shout out. I think it was jake on twitter shout out to you for sending over this chart on comparing us to 2018, and it's always good for us to look at cases like this and decide. Okay, or does this potentially mean we're at a bottom or uh? You know how how are things potentially different and even though the chart looks really similar, i mean if we were only looking at a chart point of view - hey, maybe maybe and again knock on wood.

Hopefully, right that, like one more buying opportunity - and that's it we're off to the moon but uh with the amount of uncertainties that we'd have, i think for this to come true. We would need something big to happen. We would need, for example, putin to you know, as uh kevin o'leary said yesterday, drink the nuclear tea or uh and sort of disappear and uh and probably would need to start seeing inflation if, like down substantially so my thoughts on this one.