🇻🇪 The Caracas Stock Exchange was up 17.9% today. It's up 300.84% month over month.

$IBC is benefitting from optimism about the new caretaker administration. It has been seeing significant speculative capital, including many hedge funds buying up distressed assets.

The rally has been led by the oil & financial sectors.

Some of it is just mechanical. $IBC (sometimes IBVC) is a shallow, illiquid market and it doesn't take all that much buying to move it.

But some of it is legitimate. Sanctions relief and economic revival may be on the horizon, and that's outstanding for the Venezuelan economy...

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇮🇷 The market for predicting whether the Ayatollah Khamenei will be out as the Supreme Leader of Iran by June 30th is up to a 44% chance.

Here are the percent chances for various removal-by dates:

🟢January 31st: 20% [+8]
🟢March 31st: 36% [+12]
🟢June 30th: 44% [+7]
🟢December 31st: 61% [+12]

What if we didn't bomb someone for a month? Just throwing it out there.

🇮🇷 I N T E L R U N N E R 🇮🇷

🇺🇸 The typical size versus the average cost of a new home since 2015 [U.S. Census Bureau]

The average size of a new single-family home in America has shrunk by 323 square feet since 2015, while the average price is up $161,000 as of 2024.

🏚 I N T E L R U N N E R 🏚

🇺🇸 The Stock Market Last Week

The S&P 500 climbed 1.57%, while the average stock returned 2.42%. 282 stocks outperformed.

Consumer Discretionary (+5.8%) and Basic Materials (+4.8%) were the strongest sectors. Utilities (-1.6%) was the only sector in the red. Tech came in flat.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇸 Does the entire income tax go to fraud?

Or just most of it?

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🇺🇸🇸🇴 Remigration & denaturalization.

Remigration & denaturalization.

Remigration & denaturalization.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇳 NATO Defense Spending in 2024 (USA v. Everybody Else)

🇺🇸 = a metric fuck ton

🇬🇧🇪🇺 = half or less of that

Maybe we'll decide who runs that land mass off our coast.

Thanks.

📡 I N T E L R U N N E R 📡

🥇 Gold has hit another record high—$4,612.70 this time—in Sunday evening futures.

This is the first all-time high of this year and since the run of them Christmas Week.

🕯 I N T E L R U N N E R 🕯

🇺🇸 Average debt added over the holidays, 2015-2025

Holiday debt climbed the highest since 2022, with 37% of US consumers borrowing an average of $1,223...

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🌍 The Global Returns Leaderboard for the week (plus two) ending in January 9th:

🥈 Ethereum 🔹 (+4%)

🥈 Industrial Metals 🌟 (+4%)

🥇 U.S. Small Caps 🇺🇸 (+5.7%)

🔽 CAD 🇺🇸 (-1.3%), EUR 🔣 (-0.9%), JPY 🔣 (-0.7%)

🔼 I N T E L R U N N E R 🔽

🌍 Central bank policy rate changes globally from 2020–2025...

🦅 I N T E L R U N N E R 💶

🌍 Value of merchandise imports from China divided by gross domestic product (GDP), expressed as a percentage

Services are not included. Based on IMF, OECD, and World Bank data.

🇨🇳 I N T E L R U N N E R 🇨🇳

🇮🇷 v. 🇮🇷 Oh.

Look at that totally natural collapse in the Iranian rial.

This one was clever. I'm surprised Tehran wasn't prepared for it.

📉 I N T E L R U N N E R 📉

🇺🇸 Speaking of regime change, we had one on October 29th of last year...

Since, the technology sector has been down 6.2% while everything in the S&P excluding tech has been up 5.3%.

This and the rotation to small caps have been the major shifts. The theme is breadth ascendant.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📉

🇺🇸 "A meta-analysis published in The Lancet last year showed robust reductions in all-cause mortality and positive intermediate benefits from 6,000–12,000 steps per day."

🦶 I N T E L R U N N E R 🦶

🇪🇺 The price of natural gas in Europe is up 11.17% year to date. Why?

◽️Early Season Cold Snap - There were below average temperatures in Northern Europe multiple periods in the past few weeks.

◽️Fast Drawdowns in Storage - EU storage is down to 54-58% of capacity, which is shy of the 5-year seasonal average of 70%. This causes a premium due to greater risk of a tight supply by March.

◽️Incessant Geopolitical Risks - We made it through the Venezuelan scramble relatively unscathed, but the (materially amplified) civil unrest in Iran, the threat of further military action in the Middle East, and the antagonism toward Russian tankers is finally introducing a disruption potential premium.

◽️A Short Squeeze - Net shorts have decreased for three straight weeks—an accelerant for rallies as the weather turned cold and the geopolitics went hot (especially in this thin post-holiday market).

🔥 I N T E L R U N N E R 🔥

🇺🇸 If the 2025 stock market is broken down into deciles according to distance from their 200-day moving averages, then the most successful deciles were the top (10% of stocks furthest above their 200DMAs) and the bottom (10% of stocks furthest below their 200DMAs).

The top decile averaged 32%, while the bottom decile came up with 28%. Stocks closer to their 200DMAs produced much lower average returns, including 5-7% for the 3rd through 6th deciles.

This shows the value in momentum & growth as well as the classic sort of value in buying the right distressed equities...

📉 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

💰 The Top Ten in Social Mentions Per Hour (every day in a sequence for the last three months)...

Bitcoin ($BTC) is still the undisputed champion in discussion volume, as you'd expect.

You can see Solana ($SOL) & Ethereum ($ETH) battling it out for the #2 L1 spot. That's in no way, shape, or form decided.

Ripple ($XRP) sits tightly in the 4th spot. The rest are a mix of Binance Coin ($BNB), Cardano ($ADA) and big meme coins of varying popularity ($DOGE, $PEPE, et cetera).

It's interesting to see ZCash ($ZEC) coming through more & more toward the end. There may be a bit of a privacy narrative developing...

💰 I N T E L R U N N E R 🔶

🥇 A third straight month of elevated central bank purchases in gold...

Tick tock.

Other Related Content
🟥Global Gold Reserves: The United States of America vs. The World [Sept 26] (+ Addendum on Europe)
🟩In Lieu of Glistening Gold, European Eyes Evince Gleams of Hollow Hope [Sept 30, NFU]
🟥Summary of Key Posts on Gold Through Q3 [Oct 2]
🟥The Gold/Silver Ratio Drops [Dec 2]
🟥The 50 Year Return on Gold Exceeds Bonds [Dec 7]
🟥Debasement Trade Goes Mainstream [Dec 14]
🟩Gold Priced in S&P 500 Shares Tells a Story [Dec 21, NFU]
🟥Gold's Best Year Since 1979 [Dec 31]

↗️ I N T E L R U N N E R ↗️

🇺🇸 The Micro-Cap ETF, the Russell 2000 (small caps), and the S&P 400 (mid-caps) are all up of late...

Returns over the last 3 months:

🟢$IWC — +10.23%
🟢$IWM — +8.49%
🟢$MDY — +8.35%

Returns against $SPY this year:

🟢$IWC — +4.49%
🟢$IWM — +4.36%
🟢$MDY — +3.24%

Related Content
🛑Regime Change in Sector Performance [Jan 12]
🛑Still Small Cap Season [Jan 9]
🛑Small Caps Rising [Dec 10]

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈