Animal Spirits: Wages Are Beating Inflation

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I know it’s cool to say retail traders are YOLOing right now ’cause of $GME et al.

But then why is this put/call ratio – the most accurate and reflective of retail sentiment we know of – still in the pessimistic half of its range?

Whatever YOLOing is happening is not in the… pic.twitter.com/VCLyFdjCYh

— Jason Goepfert (@jasongoepfert) May 13, 2024

My problem with the stock market is it’s just one big casino where the people in charge rig it to fuck over the little guy and make all the money for themselves #DDTG pic.twitter.com/pDPtgtZYvn

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 15, 2024

$TGT

❖ TARGET TO REDUCE PRICES ON 5,000 FREQUENTLY SHOPPED ITEMS

Target announced it will lower prices on approximately 5,000 frequently shopped items across its assortment. The retailer has just reduced prices on about 1,500 items, with thousands more price cuts planned to…

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) May 20, 2024

MORGAN STANLEY: Our survey shows “nearly 60% of consumers are getting ready to travel this summer.. Higher income consumers are more likely to travel this summer and .. spend more this year vs. last, .. a net +32% increase in spending intentions.” $RLX pic.twitter.com/96ILhU16wA

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) May 15, 2024

B of A: “.. Lower-income consumers: no clear signs of cracks ..

“.. lower-income spending has generally
outpaced higher-income spending on a y/y basis since early 2023, even excluding
necessities (i.e., groceries and gas). This is consistent with the strength in blue-collar
wage… pic.twitter.com/51T8ppBlVW

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) May 16, 2024

The “soft” components of @NFIB small business optimism say things are as bad as they were during the Global Financial Crisis.

The “hard” components say we’re not even close to that (but we’ve still hit a rough patch over the past couple years) pic.twitter.com/Scw3Tfi7sD

— Kevin Gordon (@KevRGordon) May 14, 2024

Update: @JSeyff and I are increasing our odds of spot Ether ETF approval to 75% (up from 25%), hearing chatter this afternoon that SEC could be doing a 180 on this (increasingly political issue), so now everyone scrambling (like us everyone else assumed they’d be denied). See… https://t.co/gcxgYHz3om

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) May 20, 2024

$IBIT ended up with 414 reported holders in its first 13F season, which is mind boggling, blows away record. Even having 20 holders as a newborn is bfd, highly rare. Here’s a look at how the btc ETFs compare to other ETFs launched in Jan (aka the Class of 2024) in this metric. pic.twitter.com/ngicEdbaTq

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) May 16, 2024

The 13Fs are in for Q1 2024! The TLDR? Institutions are buying. Summary data:

* 1,028 firms with more than $100m report owning bitcoin ETFs

* Collectively, they own $10.9 billion.

Already a massive success, and just a downpayment on what’s to come.

— Matt Hougan (@Matt_Hougan) May 16, 2024

$WMT US CEO: Spending is consistent; high-end consumer growth remains strong.

“In terms of the consumer, ‘consistent’ is the best word we would use to describe spending across income groups. We’ve had more growth,…among high-end consumers. That remains true”

— The Transcript (@TheTranscript_) May 16, 2024

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