Traditional Markets

The major disappointment came yesterday from the US retail sector, which made for dismal reading.

The reaction from the stock markets was swift and brutal as the major indices, which have been on a tear since the December lows took a noticeable hit (purple circle). The fall is not so dramatic; of more concern is the lost opportunity on what could've happened had the report been fine.

The market was setting up as if to rise but now the rally could possibly be called into question. We'll see. 

After all, poor economic data has largely been interpreted by investors as good news for the last few years. The worse the data, the more likely the Fed is to prop up the markets with additional stimulus.

Even as I'm writing we can see the European session turning from red to green.

JPM Coin...

As the news was spreading fast across the interwebs, I already had a drink in my hand, getting ready for a show called "Blockchain on Booze." The drunken panel, myself included, decided to discuss the big news from JPM right out the gate. Hope you enjoy the show.

On the face of it, though they're calling it a "cryptocurrency" this new coin seems to have very little to do with the crypto market. With estimated daily transfers of $6 trillion, the bank was about due for a systems upgrade and after all, why not use a private distributed ledger system to streamline things for them and their clients?

There have been several articles saying that this news is bad for Ripple as it could eat into their core market. One article even claimed that JPM coin has killed the Bitcoin dream, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Especially in a nascent industry, having competition is good for business. In fact, the atmosphere among the XRP community was one of celebration more than anything.

Still, as we've seen many times over the last few years, the news, good or bad, doesn't always impact prices. As we can see, prices barely budged yesterday.

Bigger Crypto Fish

Yesterday we were all celebrating the achievement of Anthony Pompliano and Morgan Creek, who managed to onboard the first known public pension fund into a bit of crypto exposure, a great achievement no doubt. Several hours later, crypto investment firm Grayscale also released a stunning report.

That's right, over the course of 2018, one of the worst years for crypto prices in history, institutional money has continued to flow in. To be fair, the fund did perform a lot better at the beginning of the year before sentiment turned really sour, but as we can see, there were continuous flows in throughout the year.

Also notable is that 88% of the money was invested directly in their bitcoin product, yet another figure that shows BTC's clear dominance in the market.

Wishing you and yours a fantastic weekend ahead.