Rather than ‘Will cryptos drop to zero?’, investors should be asking this question instead, says strategist
Stocks are looking up at the end of a volatile week for both equities and cryptocurrencies. Keeping the newsflow going on the latter was another tweet from Tesla boss Elon Musk that has sent a popular meme-coin surging (see below).
That brings us to our call of the day from Nordea Investment’s senior macro strategist, Sebastien Galy, who suggests that instead of wondering whether cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could tumble to zero, investors should ask “What comes next?”
“In theory, any good that can be replicated at infinity equals either zero or its marginal cost from a supply perspective. Yet, demand is clearly there with the product progressing in mainstream and we postulate that it will stop trending higher in a few years to trend with inflation. The question is what will replace this product,” said Galy in a note to clients.
The answer? Artificial intelligence, said the strategist, who envisions a decade from now we will see lower growth and below target inflation in lots of aging, developed markets, plus China.
“Anything linked to higher productivity such as AIs [artificial intelligence] and automation are likely to be the rage. Each year, the generation of AIs becomes slowly more capable following a very slow uptrend compared with the microchip development, but the potential benefits for those holding the upstream are likely wild,” he said.
“If you can buy into the right company doing AI research, it will be the one delivering on better generations of AIs decades from now in a slow process of development. Ultimately, AIs will take over ever wider swath of our economies in a slow process of accretion over decades,” he added in emailed comments.
Nordea’s own Global Disruption fund invests in Google parent Alphabet GOOGL,
Galy believes that as cryptocurrencies mature, surging demand will likely fade away and we’ll see “stability reinforced by options trading. The question is whether excessively loose monetary policies will continue to drive the products higher or they will start moving with inflation over longer periods. Over a period of a decade or so, more orthodox monetary policies suggest that cryptos will start to trade with longer-term inflation.”
Retail sales and how dogecoin is back
Tech is leading stock futures YM00,
Meme cryptocurrency dogecoin DOGEUSD,
Crypto platform Coinbase’s COIN,
Disney DIS,
Fisker FSR,
Israeli artillery pounded northern Gaza early on Friday, as fighting between the two sides worsened.
The chart
Our chart of the day from Larry Tentarelli, editor and publisher of the Blue Chip Daily Trend Report, zeroes in on his top-ranked sector right now — healthcare.
“This sector continues to show improving relative strength, with many leaders currently at or near breakout levels. The group also has reasonable valuations, in a market that has become more focused on valuations over the last 8-12 weeks,” he writes on Blue Chip Daily.
AbbVie ABBV,
Random reads
What is on the menu of the future? Maggots and sea algae.
Here’s how billionaires got even wealthier during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.
Want more for the day ahead? Sign up for The Barron’s Daily, a morning briefing for investors, including exclusive commentary from Barron’s and MarketWatch writers.