Rekt Mkts: Stocks higher, crypto higher, rates higher

One of those interesting days where basically everything was higher and it certainly felt squeezey - quite clearly a lot of the market has de-risked ahead of big macro events over the next two weeks as well as summer period etc, and yesterday felt like a relief bounce to that flow...but interesting to see a lot of the gains not being held. I don't think one green day changes the setup, but it was a useful reminder of how fast some of these stocks can move once everyone has already sold.

Pretty solid bounce in stock indicies with SPX closing 0.9% higher and NDQ 1.9% higher, although futures are giving up some of those gains today with NDQ futures currently 0.6% lower. What's notable to me is that KOSPI, having started decently higher on the day, ended up closing just 0.74% better which is a notable underperformance vs US indices (accounting for beta. What I'm trying to say here is there seems to be more evidence of the market (especially Asia) continuing to sell strength. The other thing I don't love is rates and oil moving higher alongside equities. The US 10Y is back around 4.63%, up 18bps on the month, while WTI is above $87 and around 3% higher on the day as the US-Iran situation escalates again and shipping risk comes back into focus. Maybe stocks can just ignore that, but higher rates plus higher oil is not exactly the setup where I want to chase a squeeze after a massive run. Tesla and Alphabet report after the close, which should give us a better read on whether there is real appetite for risk here or yesterday was mostly positioning.

Memory absolutely ripped yesterday. MU was up 12%, SNDK 14%, the SK Hynix ADR 14% and Kioxia 5%. NBIS was up nearly 19% after Nvidia disclosed a stake. These are huge moves, but they also came after three ugly sessions and some proper drawdowns, so I think you have to be careful deciding that anything has fundamentally changed overnight. The bit that stands out is the lack of confirmation from Korea. SK Hynix and Samsung were basically flat today and KOSPI underperformed the US move. That makes yesterday look more like a US squeeze than the market suddenly deciding all the memory oversupply fears for 2028 are bollocks. I remain bullish on memory longer term, but I don't think the move is to start buying after a 12 to 14% day. If we get another proper flush, especially around SK Hynix earnings on 29 July, I'll look again. Until then I'm happy being patient rather than forcing it.

BTC moved through $67k yesterday on reports that the White House had agreed to an ethics package around the CLARITY Act, with Bessent apparently saying the bill is at the "1-yard line". Polymarket odds moved into the low 40s and spot BTC ETFs have now had six straight days of inflows. All sounds very good, but BTC is back around $66k today with ETH flat and SOL and HYPE lower. I still think CLARITY passing is bullish and crypto has massively underperformed stocks this year, but the market giving back some of the move this quickly tells you conviction isn't exactly enormous yet. Robinhood Chain has cooled a bit as well, with PONS down around 2% and CASHCAT down 4%. I still own both. The actual launchpad activity is more interesting than today's price. PONS pools did $20.3m of volume yesterday and generated about $177k of LP fees, up 138% from the day before. Today it has already done another $7.2m of volume and $58k of fees, taking lifetime fees since launch to roughly $954k. To be clear, those are LP fees and not revenue flowing directly to PONS token holders. What it does show is that there is real activity on Robinhood Chain and PONS is currently capturing a meaningful amount of it. Whether that survives once competition properly arrives is the interesting bit. For now I still think Robinhood Chain is one of the few genuinely new crypto narratives worth watching. It can all still go to zero, obviously, but it doesn't need 30 million Robinhood users to suddenly become onchain degens for the coins there to move a long way. Good luck.