Collective insanity

Is it time for bed?

There are a number investment Substacks that feature well-researched, thoughtful analysis and long-form content. This is not one of those Substacks. Especially today’s edition, which is basically just me wondering what on earth is happening in the world.

Crypto is silly

I’m sorry, but I can’t take this stuff seriously. Hawk Tuah girl’s new crypto coin (!!!) was accused of being a “scam” and her “investors” and “fans” the victims of a “rug pull.”

This made many people very angry, and led to a confrontation on X Spaces. I’m not sure what is more ridiculous - the fact that people willingly put their money into this thing, or the fact that a group of those people, represented in this clip by a person named “Coffeezilla,” are angry that they lost money in this silly thing.

Look, I was around in the 90’s during the dot com bubble, and I don’t even think that episode was as ridiculous as this. The misallocation of brainpower, resources and capital in this space is truly astounding.

Anyway, as 85,000 people listened in, our girl Hailey agreed that it was all very silly, and decided it was time to go to bed.

The Nasdaq 100 index committee doesn’t care about you

In the days before this Substack I wrote that the S&P 500 index committee doesn’t care about you, and I would say that applies equally to whoever is deciding what stocks go into the Nasdaq 100.

This past week, it was announced that MicroStrategy (MSTR) would be added to the index. Now, not to get into the details, but it is my belief that MSTR is a Ponzi on top of a Ponzi, led by a man with questionable ethics who was charged with accounting fraud in the late 90’s tech bubble. This man knows how to personally profit by pouring gas on the flames of an investment mania, and I don’t think he cares much about doing so at your own expense.

This is what MSTR’s stock price looks like over the past 4 years. Time to buy??? Well, if you own the Nasdaq 100 or the QQQ ETF, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing next week, whether you like it or not.

Seems like it’s about time to put 2024 to bed. Let’s just hope the hangover isn’t too damaging.