To The Moon

With a handful of trading days remaining to 2023, the stock market is poised to end the year up a respectable 25% or more. That’s despite a number of significant hurdles, from multiyear-high interest rates to ongoing fighting in Ukraine and the Middle East. It’s important to point out that these returns are due mainly to the performance of a very small group of tech stocks that people are calling the Magnificent Seven. Composed of Apple, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta Platforms (Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, the group contributed roughly 60% to the S&P 500’s gains in 2023. The Magnificent Seven resembles the FAANG stocks, which surged during the pandemic as housebound consumers spent their stimulus checks online. The investment case this time, though, is artificial

Like the market in general, Bitcoin has notched a strong ending to 2023 after trading rangebound for most of the year. If today were the last day of 2023, the king of digital assets would have returned almost 150%, marking the best year since 2020, when it rose a phenomenal 305%. With slightly less than two weeks remaining in December, I figured now would be an ideal time to share my top five Bitcoin and digital asset predictions for 2024. As a reminder, these are my personal predictions and do not reflect those of U.S. Global Investors. 1. A Spot Bitcoin ETF Will Launch In The U.S., Sparking A Price Revaluation. There are no guarantees in life, but a U.S.-based spot Bitcoin ETF now appears to be imminent. Bloomberg Intelligence puts the odds of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Airline consolidation is not only relatively common but necessary for growth and competitiveness, and the recent announcement of Alaska Airlines’ planned acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines is a prime example of this trend. The move, valued at $1.9 billion, signifies more than just a business transaction. It represents a strategic positioning for future growth in a highly competitive, highly concentrated sector. Once the deal is completed, Alaska and Hawaiian will have a combined market share of approximately 8.2%, making it the fifth-largest U.S. airline — unless JetBlue Airways succeeds in getting regulatory

The life story of Charlie Munger, who passed away last week at age 99, serves as a shining example of the enduring American Dream, especially now at a time when many people doubt whether the promise of a better life is still intact. On the contrary, I believe that Munger’s journey, coupled with data from the updated Forbes 400 list, reaffirms that the American Dream still thrives. Charlie Munger’s life began in a modest Midwestern town, far from the glamor of Wall Street. His early years were marked by hardships, including a marriage that ended in divorce, a rarity at the time, which left him with little in the way of assets. But adversity was not done with him yet. Munger’s son Teddy fell victim to leukemia, and Charlie bore the financial strain of his son’s illness, paying for

The 2023 holiday season is officially upon us, and already, records are being shattered. Black Friday deal-hunters in the U.S. shelled out $9.8 billion online, a 7.5% over last year, according to Adobe Analytics. Consumers may have spent an additional $10 billion over the weekend and could spend a massive $12 billion on Cyber Monday, which would also be a new record, Adobe says.Indeed, this year appears to be one of contractions. I see a resilient consumer, with U.S. retail sales well above the five-year average, but I also see a looming sense of economic uncertainty. According to a recent Bankrate survey, around half of American adults say they’re worse off economically today than when President Joe Biden took office, with nearly 70% citing an increase in the cost of living.The

A little over a century ago, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown became the first people to make a nonstop, transatlantic flight. Beginning in Newfoundland and ending with a nonfatal crash landing on the west coast of Ireland, the trip took some 16 hours in a World War I bomber, at an average speed of 120 miles per hour. At the end of this month, if all goes according to plan, history will be made once again when a jet powered by 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will cross the Atlantic Ocean for the first time ever. Virgin Atlantic, the British carrier founded by billionaire Richard Branson, received permission from the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) last week to fly from London to N

The price of gold had its best October in nearly half a century, defying tough resistance from surging Treasury yields and a strong U.S. dollar. The yellow metal rallied an incredible 7.3% last month to close at $1,983 an ounce, its strongest October since 1978, when it jumped 11.7%. Gold, a non-interest-bearing asset, has historically floundered when bond yields were heading higher. An exception has been made this year, however, on a number of significant economic and geopolitical risks, including record-high national debt, rising credit card delinquencies, ongoing recession jitters (despite Jerome Powell’s insistence that a recession is

It’s not a matter of if, but when. I’m talking, of course, about the long-awaited approval of a U.S.-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence now estimate there’s a 90% chance that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will give the go-ahead to such an investment product by January 10, 2024. Many presenters at last week’s European Blockchain Convention (EBC) were even more optimistic, saying they believe a Bitcoin ETF will appear on the market by the end of this year. Mr. Market appears to agree. Responding to

Airlines were one of the hardest-hit industries at the start of the pandemic, with the five-member S&P 500 Passenger Airlines Index collapsing over 31% in 2020. This made the group the worst-performing S&P 500 industry for the year, outside of oil and gas.The selloff also created an exciting investment opportunity that many young and nontraditional investors, locked down at home and with record disposable income, took advantage of. According to data from Robinhood, the commission-free securities trading platform preferred by millennial and Gen Z investors, distressed airline stocks became one of the year’s breakout hits, with trading volumes hitting historic levels.I belie

Private property rights and freedom of speech are fundamental human rights, and yet — as many people in Canada, Europe and elsewhere are discovering — they are among the most fragile. If we fail to remain vigilant and take these rights for granted, we risk losing the privilege of owning our own property and expressing our own thoughts and opinions. So said conference-goers who were kind enough to chat with me following my presentation last week at Bitcoin Amsterdam, Europe’s largest Bitcoin event. I spoke about the differences between common law and civil law, using two island-nations — Singapore and Cuba — as case studies for both legal systems. A former British colony, Singapore embraced common law and free markets and therefore saw its GDP per capita surge from around $3,600 at the