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Bitfinex investors are betting on some upside after the Federal Reserve comments on Wednesday about inflation and asset purchases.

Bitcoin (BTC) might see its last trading day of downside as traders line up to cash in on the Federal Reserve meeting.

On Dec. 14, bids had started to increase on the major exchange Bitfinex in a signal that investors have the belief that BTC/USD will rise.

Time to “sell the rumor and buy the news?”

The Fed will provide some key information on what future asset purchases will be, as well as inflation during the meeting, and bets are increasing when it comes to the knock-on impact for both traditional markets and crypto.

Bitfinex’s order book has suggested that BTC traders are looking for a chance to “buy the news.”

As reported by Cointelegraph, if the Fed reduces its asset purchases it will effectively limit the availability of any “easy” money, and speeding up the process might pressure risk assets like BTC until there’s a slackening of policy returns.

For the near term, however, any buy-up would resemble the events from the prior month’s inflation data print, this will produce a conspicuous but short-lived increase to BTC.

Bitfinex investors are waiting in an area that is between $44,500 to $46,000 during Tuesday trading, with a spot price currently sitting at $46,800 after losses throughout the trading day.

“Think FOMC has a good opportunity to be a ‘buy the news’ and sell the rumor event,” William Clemente said.

Bitcoin investors are anything but docile

Elsewhere, the evidence on the exchange order books indicate whales are becoming increasingly bearish.

As noted by Material Scientist, large-volume investors have been continuously selling since Oct.

“They have not bought a single dip since Oct. and have been mainly TWAP-selling this whole time,” Material Scientist stated on Twitter.

Some exceptions have reached the headlines, and whales have indicated buying interest. Yet the data shows $60,000 resistance level is still rising with time.

“We have not yet seen any of the Bitcoin dips over the last thirty days bought with any real conviction,” said Material Indicators.

Author: Steven Sinclaire

As the overall market suffered declines at the beginning of the week, some companies that many traders consider to be safer investments held up quiete well. In particular, both PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) and Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) reached all-time highs during the Monday trading session, and the success of their respective companies could point to more gains ahead for their share prices.

P&G is A-OK

Shares of Procter & Gamble increased another 1.5% during Monday’s trading session. That brought the stock’s year-to-date gains to about 13%, and even though that is lagging the market overall, P&G has continuously been hitting all-time highs since last summer.

A couple of trends have helped Procter & Gamble a lot over the last few years. The COVID pandemic raised demand for the products like staples, toilet tissue, personal care and home cleaning items that P&G produces, especially must-have products such as top brands like Charmin, Gillette, and Mr. Clean command a sizable market share both in America and in areas around the globe.

More recently, as inflation has increased dramatically, businesses that have pricing strength have a competitive advantage over companies that don’t. Procter & Gamble has developed a loyal customer base that is better able to absorb increased prices, and that has allowed them to pass through the higher costs for raw materials better than rival consumer goods providers.

Procter & Gamble has generated significant free cash flow, a lot of which it shares with its investors through dividends. The stock yields 2.2% as of today. While not immune from added cost pressures, P&G has done a great job managing expenses, and it is no surprise to see nervous traders bidding the stock to record levels.

Some fizz in PepsiCo’s stock

Elsewhere, stock prices of PepsiCo were up about half a percent on Monday. The soft-drink and snack giant’s stock has been in a long bull market throughout much of the 2010s, routinely reaching record highs along the way.

PepsiCo has been firing on all cylinders lately, with consumers dramatically increasing their demand for its products. During the third quarter, PepsiCo produced organic revenue growth of 9%, with international markets seeing significantly higher sales volumes. Even with the higher costs, operating cash flow was up a considerable amount from last year’s levels, and PepsiCo was able to increase its forecast for full-year earnings and sales growth.

Dividend investors love the way PepsiCo treats them. The stock currently has a 2.5% dividend yield, and the beverage and snack company has raised its yearly dividend payout every year for nearly 50 years now.

Investors should not expect Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo to generate the sort of near-term explosive gains that higher-growth stocks sometimes produce. Yet, the benefits of safer stocks like these two have become much more evident — and it is easy to see why these two stocks are at record highs as a consequence.

Author: Steven Sinclaire

Tesla (TSLA) stock price dipped below $1,000 per share on Monday, to its lowest number since October. The EV giant’s stock fell as much as 5% in the morning session.

Investors highlight the stock fell below its 50-day moving avg., which is usually considered a warning sign. Stock price hit an intraday low of $957.21 during the morning trading session. A close under the 50-day moving average might signal more selling ahead.

A “key level is the gap low on 10/25… It coincides the more recent low on 12/6 – $950,” the chief markets strategist at DriveWealth, Jay Woods, told Yahoo Finance.

“If that does not hold as support, I would expect that the gap will fill and possibly rather quickly. A retracement to the 100-day moving avg. at $865 would be the downside technical target you should watch,” he said.

“It did have a 37% correction from Jan. to May. So, a correction isn’t out of the ordinary when you’re looking at TSLA historically,” says Woods.

The stock’s downward trajectory comes at the same time CEO Elon Musk was named the “Times Person of the Year”.

Bianco Research Pres. Jim Bianco has pointed out “TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year has in the past been a good contrarian Indicator. So, consider yourself warned.” Jim Bianco highlights other noteworthy POY, which includes Amazon’s (AMZN) Bezos given the accolade in 1999. The price of the stock had subsequently dived during the dot-com bubble burst.

Musk started selling billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock in Nov., a move that he had telegraphed earlier in the year. The selling put additional pressure on the stock. While recent volatility in the market and concerns about the Federal Reserve taking steps to fight inflation have also been a cause of intraday downward moves.

However, some traders aren’t phased by the sell-off of the stock. Investment advisor Ross Gerber told Yahoo Finance this past month that recent price drops are a great opportunity to buy.

Tesla hit $1 trillion in valuation for its first time ever on Oct. 25th. The stock hit an all-time high of $1,229.91 on Nov. 4.

Author: Scott Dowdy

Retirees received some seemingly great news recently from the Social Security Administration (SSA) when they announced that people who collect Social Security benefits would be receiving a 5.9% cost of living adjustment (COLA) next year. This is the biggest raise in forty years, and it means that seniors will, in theory, end up with a lot more money.

The issue is, two pieces of awful news followed, which means that most seniors will not end up better off even with larger checks. In fact, many seniors will end up in a tougher financial situation when it comes to how far their money goes. Here is why.

1. Medicare premiums are increasing 14.5%

The elderly typically depends on Medicare to pay for any healthcare they receive. Most seniors have Medicare premiums taken right from their Social Security benefit checks. The charge for premiums is for Medicare Part B, which is the type of Medicare that pays for routine care and not hospitalizations.

Unfortunately, Medicare premiums will increase sharply next year. The standard month to month premium will increase from $148.50 in 2021 up to $170.10 in 2022. This $21.60 jump is a 14.5% increase, and it will eat up a much of the Social Security increase retirees are getting. The Medicare Part B deductible is also going up by $30 in 2022, increasing from $203 in 2021 to $233 in 2022. This deductible increase will leave retirees responsible for even more costs.

With Medicare premiums taking up around a third of the avg. retiree’s cost of living adjustments, seniors will be left with much less money to help cover the additional costs that COLAs should help defray.

2. Reports are showing 6.2% inflation

Social Security’s COLA was based on an adjustment in the CPI-W (Consumer Price Index for Clerical Workers) and Urban Wage Earners. COLAs can be calculated when you compare the CPI-W for the months of July, Aug., and Sept. to the CPI-W in the same time period the prior year. This comparison has shown 5.9% inflation, which is why retirees are receiving a 5.9% raise.

However, a newer measure of inflation — comparing year-over-year of the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) in Oct. 2021 — has shown that prices are actually up 6.2% from last year. With just a speedy glance, it is easy to see that a 5.9% increase isn’t going to do a lot to help retirees maintain their purchasing power if the price of services and goods has increased by 6.2% — especially if a lot of that extra money seniors get is taken up by increased Medicare premiums.

Seniors are likely to have financial shortfalls in 2022, despite the large benefits boost, as their checks simply are not going to go far enough to cover the additional medical costs and higher costs for food, transportation and heating expenses. And their issues will likely be made worse by the fact most retirees rely on the money in their savings account to supplement Social Security — and inflation drives down the value of their savings.

Ultimately, seniors may need to lower their expectations in terms of their purchasing power in order to avoid real budget shortfalls — despite receiving the largest Social Security increase in decades. And it is best to prepare for that now rather than not being ready for it in 2022.

Author: Blake Ambrose

Sure, there are cryptos with a larger market cap than Shiba Inu (SHIB). However, no digital token has been a bigger winner in 2020. Shib’s remarkable growth of well over 66,000,000% has put it in a class of its own.

Past performance doesn’t always translate to success in the future, though. Here are two cryptos that might beat Shiba Inu next year.

1. Avalanche

It was not all that long ago that Shib ranked above Avalanche (AVAX) based on its market cap. However, Avalanche sidelined Shib in Nov. and hasn’t looked back ever since. It’s now the 12th-largest cryptocurrency that’s on the market today, while Shiba Inu is ranked No. 13.

The key to the momentum of Avalanche is its unique style architecture. Avalanche has 3 interoperable blockchains that allow it to avoid scalability issues and higher costs that are associated with some other platforms such as Ethereum.

Its platform already has the ability to process over 4,500 transactions each second. Its costs are extremely-low. And no blockchain can beat Avalanche’s time to finality of less than two seconds.

Unsurprisingly, creators have ran to Avalanche. And now there are over 150 projects in the Avalanche ecosystem, and that number keeps growing. We’re not just talking about the smaller organizations that are opting to use Avalanche. Global consulting and accounting firm Deloitte has plans to build a disaster recover platform that is cloud-based and uses the Avalanche blockchain.

2. Kadena

The most likely crypto to fly out of nowhere as Shib did in 2021 are those that are not already the most well known. But these less-known coins still have to have a lot going for them to be able to stand out from the crowd. I believe that Kadena (KDA) stands out as one of the more likely contenders to break out next year.

Kadena is not exactly camping out in nowhere today. It comes in ranked at No. 67 on CoinMarketCap’s list of top cryptos. But with a current market cap of about $1.8 billion, Kadena might still have plenty of room to grow even after skyrocketing more than 7,800% in 2020.

KDA shines on the performance front. It has the ability to process 480,000 transactions each second. It could also scale to faster transaction speeds as additional chains are being added to its network. There’s no ceiling on KDA’s throughput.

Kadena has also exceled with its real-world utility. It can support non-fungible coins (NFTs), including fractional NFTs that aren’t linked to a single exchange. KDA’s smart contracts are for the most part safe. And its costs are extremely-low — only small transaction fees for businesses and consumers can completely get rid of their customer’s  transaction fees.

There is no guarantee that KDA will be one of the top breakout cryptos of 2022, of course. However, it does check off the right boxes required to possibly beat Shiba Inu.

Author: Steven Sinclaire

This year, the average month to month Social Security benefit check came out to about $1,565. After a 5.9% cost-of-living change that’s scheduled to take place in 2022, the average benefit check will rise to about $1,657 as reported by the SSA. The average couple might see around $3,000 a month next year.

The increase of about $100 has come after a year of out-of-control inflation. Over the last year, prices have risen 6% in almost all large sectors, and especially the ones that are most important for senior citizens, in all major grocery store categories. Increases in the COLA benefit in the last couple of years have stayed around 1-1.3%. This year’s change is one of the biggest COLA increases in decades.

Forbes has predicted that the raise in benefits will help nearly 62 million American seniors who receive a Social Security check in Jan. 2022. Americans who get Supplemental Security Income checks will be able to see their raise a little sooner, starting on December 30. The SSA has estimated that the payment increase to SSI beneficiaries will rise to approximately 8 million individuals by next year.

For those people who receive Social Security income, this number is expected to rise to $821 next year, up from $794 each month this year. The $47 raise will especially help the nearly 3 million seniors who get both SSI and Social Security benefits together.

If you get both regular Social Security and SSI payments next year, this might mean that you could receive about $2,500 each month. If you want to see a more personalized estimate of the amount you will be getting after the COLA changes, head over to ssa.gov website to use the SSA’s Social Security calculator. While you’re there, you’ll be able to put your personal information in to get a more accurate calculation as to how the COLA change might affect you in particular.

If you’re scheduled to receive these benefits next year, the SSA will send you a notification of this via online and mail starting in December.

Author: Steven Sinclaire

The amazing rise of the Shiba Inu (SHIB) token has been one of the most exciting and unlikely trading stories of 2021. The crypto coin’s valuation has spiked roughly 45,000,000% this year and produced life-changing returns for traders who even invested a relatively small amount of money into the coin and held it through its bull run.

Even after a pull back from its lifetime high, Shib currently has a market cap of $19 billion. The crypto has enjoyed excellent momentum despite a volatile trading cycle, but could it cross the $100 billion point by the end of 2022?

How the SHIB token has become a sensation

The SHIB token is one of the most explosive investment winners in history. The performance of the crypto is even more amazing, considering it began as a joke. While Dogecoin was minted to spoof Bitcoin, SHIB came into the market as a spoof on Dogecoin. Even in the time of memes, entering into the world of crypto as a spoof of a spoof is not a likely foundation for producing legendary returns.

Virtual currencies being started as a joke and generating a billion-dollar market capitalization was at one point considered an impossible development for a spoof coin, but here we are. Shib has managed to gather a large and highly engaged number of supporters, and individuals who doubted its massive growth potential have watched from the sidelines as the token continuously beats the odds. While the coin lacks use cases or traditional fundamentals beyond serving as a speculative trading vehicle or currency, that has not stopped it from generating massive gains.

If SHIB continues gaining adoption among crypto investors and traders, it is possible that its token value will climb significantly over current levels. Considering that the crypto has already generated massive gains across 2021’s trading, it is not out of the question that it could see growth of an additional 4.5x by the end of 2022.

What could drive SHIBa Inu to $100 billion?

Shiba Inu was recently valued at roughly $0.000034, which was down more than half from its lifetime peak share price of $0.00008841 per coin. Climbing back up to its lifetime peak would bring the coin’s market capitalization back up to about $50 billion. From there, it would just need to double one more time to hit the $100 billion threshold.

Cryptos can allow services and businesses to lower transaction fees and other obstacles created by the need of moving money by using payment processing services and banks. SHIB will be accepted as a payment tender at AMC Entertainment’s theaters within a few months, and its integration with other companies and services could help create more momentum for the token. Here recently, SHIB traders have been getting their hopes up about the possibility that the coin could be used by future metaverse projects.

Author: Scott Dowdy

Mike Novogratz stated on Wednesday that the cryptocurrency ethereum is attractive as a bet on the tech versus BTC’s appeal as an inflation hedge.

The cryptocurrency bull said ethereum is performing better than bitcoin as the Fed is attempting to tackle inflation.

He added that the U.S. economy is booming, and he thinks the markets will see a “Huge fourth quarter.”

Ethereum is outperforming BTC as the it becomes a less attractive option as an inflation hedge while the Fed. Reserve’s hawkishness has only just started leading into 2022, stated Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz during an interview on Wednesday.

With a max supply of 21 million, many traders have long seen the world’s largest crypto as a hedge against inflation, and especially in the face of the unprecedented easy money policies that were intended to help keep the U.S. economy afloat throughout the COVID pandemic. That might be challenged, however, as the United States’ central bank starts to turn hawkish to fight inflation next year.

Speaking on the CNBC network, Novogratz had stated that as BTC loses some interest from traders as a hedge against a currency that is devalued, ETH is outperforming as its proponents notice the possibility in the solutions that are enabled by the underlying tech.

“People see ETH as a tech bet,” Novogratz stated. While bitcoin has remained the most dominant crypto, its market share has fallen to about 40%, which is down from 70% as traders turn to other digital assets.

For Novogratz, ETH becomes a more promising crypto compared to bitcoin as the Federal government stops pumping large amounts of cash into the U.S. economy. The billionaire cryptocurrency bull said that in any event, he thinks it will have a “Huge fourth quarter” riding on the back of a booming economy.

He has also laid out what he thinks about a continuing bull run in the stock market, which he added are trading a lot more bullishly than crypto is.

“Equities are trading more bullish than cryptos are because you can see this tension, that the Feds are about to take the booze out of the punchbowl much earlier than we had expected,” Novogratz stated Wednesday during a interview with CNBC. “Broadly that should not be a good thing for risk assets.”

Author: Steven Sinclaire

The market is pretty much a popularity contest, it takes turns hating and loving different stocks on any given day, for many reasons. You shouldn’t try to find the logic behind this just focus on picking the unpopular stocks that might one day be the “popular” stocks that everyone buys.

By looking at the fundamentals you can find stocks that could be booming tomorrow. Here are three of them.

1. Marqeta

The world financial services industry is worth trillions. Until the past decade, the way people spend money has stayed relatively the same.

Marqeta serves a particular purpose in how fintech companies are rapidly blossoming. Marqeta is a platform that lets its customers connect to payment networks that already exist like Mastercard and Visa through its application programming interface. Its technology supports the payments for many applications like Affirm’s debit card, Square’s Cash App, DoorDash transactions, and much more.

The company is getting bigger, it has reported a 56% increase year-over-year in revenue for its third-quarter earnings in 2021. Marqeta’s biggest customer is Square. About 68% of its total revenue comes from Square. This number is coming down slowly due to the fast growth of other customers. Especially those customers in the Buy Now, Pay Later area that Marqeta serves like Sezzle, Affirm, Zip, Klarna, and Afterpay.

The stock went public in June and currently trades far below the $30 share price it started at. Investors may be afraid of Marqeta’s interest in Square, however at a price-to-sales ratio of around 21, a strong customer base, and the stock’s growth it may be worth considering shares.

2. MercadoLibre

Since Amazon’s rise more than 10 years ago E-commerce has been popular with growth investors. However, there’s a long way to go for growth in upcoming markets. MercadoLibre has been growing its company in Latin America for almost 2 decades.

The company has many layers to it, including payment/credit services, e-commerce, and shipping and logistics. Each part complements the other, this gives customers a better experience in a place where the people are underfunded or live in areas where stores and amenities are more difficult to find.

MercadoLibre’s growth went up during COVID. Revenues rose 73% year over year during 2020 to just below $4 billion. The company’s revenue grew 66% in Q3 which shows they are having another strong year in 2021. The company is also showing positive earnings-per-share as reinvestment in the business grows.

Other than its growth, over the past year the stock has been down 28%. The growth shows that the company is doing just fine.

3. Zoom

Zoom Video Communications could be the ultimate showpiece of the COVID pandemic. This is because the lockdowns made everyone stay inside their homes, so people used Zoom in order to have meetings.

Zoom is known for its technology for video meetings, but it does have other functions like Zoom phone and chat.

The company hit a share price of $559 in late 2020, the stock has now went down to under $200 this is because of the 2020 growth numbers that are almost impossible to top. Zoom products got adopted faster than they would have because of the pandemic. The stock is being punished because investors believe it will grow at a slower pace.

The stock has a P/S ratio of 15 now, which is a sensible valuation. Growth in the mid-teens for 2023 is seen by analysts and EPS growth close to 20% every year for the upcoming three to five years. Zoom is unlikely to deliver life-changing returns to investors, however it can still be a profitable.

Author: Steven Sinclaire

One of the positive by-products of today’s rising inflation is that the Social Security Administration has noticed and made adjustments to counter it. And as a result, some important changes are on their way to a Social Security statement near you next year.

Here, we will look at five big changes to Social Security that you need to have on your radar.

1. A living adjustment cost of 5.9% 

As the headliner of big changes happening next year, the SSA has announced that beneficiaries will get a 5.9% raise in their monthly benefit checks beginning in 2022. This increase was designed to help retirees manage their buying power amid increasing prices in today’s economy. Even though you will receive more, your ability to buy services and goods really has not changed much from last year — but it is still something to appreciate.

2. The increase of the Social Security wage base

The SSA collects the premiums for its Survivor, Old Age, and Disability Insurance programs by taxing 6.2% of the wage base, up to a certain amount. This year, the number was $142,800, and next year, it will increase to $147,000. In effect, all incomes up to $147,000 will have a taxation rate of 6.2%, while income earned above that threshold will not be subject to a Social Security tax. However, more of your salary will be taxed, and it’s important that you know why.

3. Full retirement age (FRA) is going up to 67 for people turning 62 in 2022

The age at which you will be able to claim full retirement benefits is going up to 67 next year; this applies to anyone that was born in 1960 or after. This means if you were to turn 62 next year, you will be facing a full retirement at the age of 67, which is just months more than individuals born between the age of 1955 and 1959. While it is not a big difference to the retiree if we are only talking about several months of time, but it does have a financial impact when it’s applied throughout the retiree population.

4. You can earn more during retirement without losing your early benefits

If you have not reached full retirement age by next year, you’ll be able to collect up to $19,560 per year without having any reduction in SS benefits.

If you are going to reach full retirement age sometime next year, your salary can go up to $51,960 during the period in 2022 prior to reaching full retirement age without seeing a reduction in your Social Security checks.

If you wait until you reach full retirement age to collect benefits, the SSA won’t ever take benefits away based on work.

5. Monthly premiums of Medicare Part B will rise 14.5%

While it is a different program completely, the SSA’s Medicare program will also have cost increases of its own in 2022. Monthly premiums of Medicare’s Part B plan, stand to rise 14.5% next year, going from $148.50 to $170.10.

This is mostly because of higher utilization across the healthcare spectrum, coupled with cost increases. Critically, this is Medicare’s largest increase in its history and is most certainly a reflection of the world we live in.

Author: Steven Sinclaire

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