🇺🇸 Allocations to Bitcoin & Ethereum ETFs now make up about 1.6% of total ETF assets.

That’s about 100bp up from the start of 2024…

🪙 CHART WATCH 🔷

🇺🇸 Overall Bill Pay Market Size (in billions of dollars)…

U.S. households spend $4.55 trillion annually on bills. For the 13 most common bills (illustrated here), $3.45 trillion is the yearly total.

These include: Mortgage; Rent; Auto Loan; Gas; Electric, Water & Sewer, Waste & Recycling; Auto Insurance; Cable & Internet & Phone; Health Insurance; Mobile Phone; Alarm & Security; and Life Insurance.

🔠 CHART WATCH 🔠

🇿🇦 🇲🇦 🇪🇬 The African Battery Storage Pipeline

Nearly 600 million Africans lack electricity, and the population is set to double by 2050-2070. Utility-scale batteries will be crucial to bridging the energy gap.

🔋 CHART WATCH 🔋

🇺🇸 The monthly growth in retail sales for May (gray), June (green), and July (blue), in billions & seasonally adjusted.

Auto dealers & online retailers are leading the pack…

🚖 CHART WATCH 🚖

🇺🇸 Trump has begun discussions of announcing the new Fed chair before Powell’s term is up next year.

Outside of occasional spikes from Kevin Hassett & Christopher Waller, the prediction market has almost exclusively been led by Kevin Warsh since December.

In the past few weeks, that’s all changed. Warsh started to roll over as Hassett peaked, and then Hassett joined in the rollover, leaving Waller out in front (a lead he has extended to 10 points in the past few days).

🏦 CHART WATCH 🏦

🌎 Central bank rate decisions this week include Uruguay, Sweden, New Zealand, Indonesia, Iceland, Jamaica, Israel, Botswana, and Paraguay.

Tuesday: 🇺🇾
Wednesday: 🇸🇪🇳🇿🇮🇩🇮🇸🇯🇲🇮🇱
Thursday: 🇧🇼
Friday: 🇵🇾

📆 CHART WATCH 📆

🌎 Returns Leaderboard for the week ending on 8/15 (in USD)…

🥇 🇯🇵 Japanese Equities
🥇 🇺🇸 U.S. Small Caps
🥇 🇨🇳 Chinese Equities

⬇️ Gold, WTI Crude, 30Y U.S. Treasuries

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇺🇸 The S&P 500 ($SPX) and the CNN Fear & Greed Index back to July 2021…

🌐 CHART WATCH 🌐

🇨🇳 China’s growth momentum has weakened. Expansion in output, consumption, and investment all slowed sharply…

📉 CHART WATCH 📉

🪙 $1.82 billion in stablecoins flowed into Binance.

🔶 CHART WATCH 🔶

🌐 This is the past year in total social mentions of cryptocurrencies.

Call that what you will, but it’s no irrational exuberance…

🪙 CHART WATCH 🔷

🇺🇸 The Nail Salon Boom

💅 CHART WATCH 💅

🇺🇸 The S&P 500 ($SPX) has had -21% fall and a 34% rally to a series of all-time highs so far this year…

🌐 CHART WATCH 🌐

🌐 Change in consensus forecast for GDP growth in 2026 (from Jan 2025).

🔺️ CHART WATCH 🔺️

🇬🇾🇦🇲🇨🇩🇰🇬 The fastest growing trading nations…

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇺🇸 New houses are now cheaper than existing houses…

📈 CHART WATCH 📉

🇺🇸 The big move in solar energy ($TAN) against overall energy ($XLE) is the largest two-day gain (13.8%) in the ratio since 2013.

Will solar repeat its Trump I performance? It’s up 30% since Inauguration Day, but it hit +1,272% back then…

☀️ CHART WATCH ☀️

🇺🇸 Beyond Meat ($BYND), the purveyors of the freaky plant-based pseudo-meat, opened $46 on May 2nd, 2019 & rose 411% in just shy of 3 months, closing at $234.90 on July 26th.

Since then it has fallen 98.9% to $2.53/share…

📉 CHART WATCH 📉

🇳🇿🇺🇸🇮🇳 Global Equity Forward P/E

New Zealand wins with an extreme forward valuation. The United States & India are neck-and-neck for 2nd & 3rd, followed by Australia & Sweden. China, Greece, Japan, and Taiwan have historically had extreme valuations.

Turkey has the lowest forward P/E, followed by Hungary & Brazil, and then Poland & South Korea (two of the best performing stock markets this year).

📊 CHART WATCH 📊