💰 Bitcoin vs. The Average Stock

This is the weekly chart for Bitcoin priced Equal-Weight S&P 500 ($RSP) shares.

It's not the best-looking chart.

Part of me feels like it's due for a bounce. Whales have been buying into retail sales, it's a bit oversold in the medium-term, and it's lagging similar assets.

But it's an ugly chart. There's no denying it's ugly...

🐻 I N T E L R U N N E R 🐻

🥇 Gold's Record Run in 2026

Make that 12 record highs thus far this year, as we're currently sitting at $4,920.50 per ounce.

That's a year-to-date gain of 13.37%.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇸 v. 🌍 The U.S. Dollar Index ($DXY) inverted (top) and the All-World Excluding U.S. equities vs. U.S. equities (bottom)...

The profits of international firms will be higher in Dollar terms when the Dollar is weaker. A weaker Dollar often signals a risk-on environment in which investors are comfortable moving out of the safety of U.S. assets.

We are likely entering a period of outperformance for the Rest of the World.

However, this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that U.S. exporters do better under the same conditions.

💵 I N T E L R U N N E R 💵

🧢 Tokenized Real World Assets (RWA) Hit $21 Billion in Total Value Locked (TVL)

The most popular asset by far is U.S. treasury debt at 42.4%.

The next most popular are commodities (17.6%), private credit (11.7%), institutional alternative funds (10.8%), and corporate bonds (5.6%).

It seems likely to be a burgeoning sector in crypto...

Not financial advice.

🔠 I N T E L R U N N E R 🔠

🇺🇸 Foreign-Held U.S. Equities as a Percentage of Foreign-Held U.S. Financial Assets

It's a record high for foreign ownership of American financial assets. It's an even greater percentage than the late 60s.

Perfect timing. While they're all holding American assets, we'll jump to foreign assets!

Not financial advice...

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🇺🇸 Tuesday's dip buy by retail was the third biggest such dip buy performed by retail and the largest since a pair of dates in the spring, around Liberation Day and 6 weeks following.

📉 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇸 GrubHub is the most affordable food delivery service in 24 states.

12 for Uber Eats & 14 for DoorDash...

🍔 I N T E L R U N N E R 🍟

🇺🇸 The Russell 2K dropped 1.88% against the S&P 500 on Friday.

But not before $IWM broke the record for consecutive sessions besting $SPY Thursday afternoon, when it completed its fourteenth such outperformance for a total 8.43% gain.

It will be interesting to see where small caps go from here...

✅ I N T E L R U N N E R ✅

🇺🇸 Percent more sellers than buyers actively in the market...

It's a buyers' market: there are 37% more home sellers than buyers.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇸 Estimated number of U.S. homebuyers and sellers actively in the market...

Homebuyers and sellers are both backing off:

Buyers are backing off due to high housing costs and economic uncertainty. Sellers, many of whom are buyers themselves, are backing off in response to lackluster demand for their homes. Some sellers are delisting after watching their homes sit on the market for months with zero bites from buyers, while others are choosing not to list at all after seeing their neighbor’s house sell for under the asking price.

This is the second lowest level numbers of buyers (exceeded, barely, only by the launch of COVID) and the largest decline in the number of sellers in two years.

🏡 I N T E L R U N N E R 🏡

🇺🇸 I see we're doing the measles "outbreak" panic campaign again. So let's this chart—odds of dying from a cause in the year 2000 and from measles in 1962 (1 in X)—as a remedy for this mental illness.

This is where a person's odds of dying of measles in 1962 (the vaccine was released one year later in 1963) ranks among other unusual forms of death.

And it was an unusual form of death, make no mistake about it. Remember those chicken pox parties people would have? They did the same with measles. Because once you catch it, you attain lifetime immunity and a stronger early-life immune education, and those are serious perks.

Especially considering that it had a 99.9% survival rate (in 1962). It produces no more than a cough & a rash in the vast majority of cases. And when the oft-discussed complications do appear, vitamin A is the solution.

So where does it rank? Measles killed 408 out of 186,538,000. That's 1 in 457,000, well below "inhalation & ingestion of food causing obstruction" (1 in 370,000) or "contact with machinery" (1 in 407,000).

The risk is roughly on par with unfortunate activities like a "fall involving furniture" (1 in 424,000) and a "fall on [the] same level from slipping, tripping, and stumbling" (1 in 487,000).

So as the media once again degenerates into relentless medical fear porn, remember that such endeavors are a red flag indicating you must do one thing very urgently: look into whatever they're fear-mongering about with an intensive & unrelenting skepticism.

I assure you: you will be rewarded...

More on INTELRUNNER
• Impact of Childhood Vaccination on Short- and Long-Term Chronic Health Outcomes in Children (A Birth Cohort Study by Henry Ford Health System)
• Children Up To Date on Recommended Vaccines Has Dropped

💉 I N T E L R U N N E R 💉

🇯🇵 Domestic and Hedged Bond Yields for Japanese Investors

The Japanese are now better off investing in their own country's JGBs (from a yield perspective) than making hedged investments in German bunds, British gilts, or American treasuries.

🌫 I N T E L R U N N E R 🌫

🇺🇸 The Stock Market Last Week

The S&P 500 fell 0.35%, while the average stock fell 0.16%. 237 stocks outperformed over this four-day week.

Energy (+3.1%) and Basic Materials (+2.6%) were the strongest sectors. Financials (-2.5%) and Real Estate (-2.4%) were the weakest.

📉 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇸🇬 Headline & Core Inflation in Singapore

Year over year inflation came in at 1.2% in both contexts. It was up 0.3% month over month for headline and 0.4% for core.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📉

🇮🇷🇮🇷 The sites of suppressed protests in Iran according to research by the New York Times.

They will not be doing the corollary: sites of murders of security personnel & civilians in the pursuit of greater rebellion.

🗺 I N T E L R U N N E R 🗺

🇺🇸 Natural gas has had an insane week...

On January 16th, the Friday before last, it closed at $3.103/MMBtu. Yesterday, it hit $7.439/MMBtu intraday, closing around $6.80.

Overnight it's shed another 5% and is trading in the 6.40s. That's a 107.25% gain since that close on the 16th.

Is it just the storm? We covered that on the second day of the rally:

Arctic air minus steady supply plus aggressive short sellers equals the largest two-day gain since 1990 for Henry Hub: 54%.

🔥 I N T E L R U N N E R 🔥

🇺🇸 Percent of Population Under Age 18, 1990 vs. 2024, by American State

Same scale for both...

💫 I N T E L R U N N E R 💫