🚨 BREAKING: The US government will shut down in 6 days.
Last time this happened, gold and silver made new ATHs.
But if you’re holding stocks or risk assets, be extremely careful.
We’re heading into a total data blackout.
Here are the 4 real threats 👇
1️⃣ Data blackout No CPI. No jobs reports. The Fed and risk models go blind. VIX must reprice higher to reflect uncertainty.
2️⃣ Collateral shock With existing credit warnings, a shutdown could trigger a downgrade. Repo margins spike. Liquidity gets destroyed.
3️⃣ Liquidity freeze The RRP buffer is dry. There is no safety net left. If dealers start hoarding cash, funding markets seize up.
4️⃣ Recession trigger Each week of shutdown cuts ~0.2% of GDP. That’s enough to tip a stalling economy into a technical recession.
📉 During the last major funding stress (March 2020), the SOFR–IORB spread blew out. 👀 Watch the SOFR–IORB spread. If it starts gapping, it means private markets are starving for cash while the Fed sits on a pile of it — exactly what we saw in 2020. This sounds scary — but don’t worry.
This is one of those weeks where macro, policy, and mega-cap earnings all intersect, which tends to raise dispersion even if the index ends flat.
On the policy side, the Fed decision and Powell’s press conference will be parsed less for the rate move itself and more for language around inflation persistence and financial conditions. Historically, when FOMC weeks coincide with heavy mega-cap earnings, S&P 500 intraday volatility runs ~25–30% above average, even without a directional break.
Earnings matter because of weight. Microsoft, Apple, Meta, and Tesla together account for ~20% of the S&P 500 and an even larger share of NASDAQ earnings growth. Guidance on AI capex, margins, and demand elasticity will matter more than headline beats or misses. In prior quarters, commentary from MSFT and META alone moved the QQQ by 1–2% in a single session.
Friday adds tail risk. PPI feeds directly into inflation expectations, while the government shutdown deadline introduces event-driven volatility, even though past shutdowns have typically shaved only ~0.1–0.3pp off quarterly GDP if short-lived.
Net: this is a volatility week, not just an earnings week. The signal will come from how policy tone, inflation data, and guidance align—not any single headline.
Spot prediction markets jump from zero to $5 billion in one year.
Prediction markets have experienced explosive growth, with spot trading volume surging from $0 to $5 billion in just one year 🚀
This rapid growth reflects:
• Increased interest in betting on real-world events • The transformation of prediction markets into an information and pricing tool • Accelerated adoption beyond traditional cryptocurrency
The message is clear: What was marginal yesterday… is now a fully-fledged market.
Once the crypto market structure bill passes, banks move in fully.
That’s the inflection point: - Legal clarity removes career risk - Banks stop experimenting and start deploying - Crypto becomes a standard financial product, not an edge case
This isn’t about curiosity anymore. It’s about regulated institutions finally being allowed to compete.
Currencies with the highest expected release values next week 👇
• $SUI — $80.38 million • $EIGEN — $12.35 million • $KITE — $11.54 million • $UDS — $11.31 million • $OP — $9.81 million • $TREE — $9.78 million • $SIGN — $7.81 million
📊 Monitoring timing and liquidity is crucial this week.
BULLISH: 🇺🇸 President Trump promised to give Americans a $2,000 “tariff dividend” without congressional approval.
Americans paying higher prices via tariffs, then getting some of it back and calling it a "dividend" is certainly one way to describe a transaction. Treasury Secretary says it needs Congress. Math says it costs 2x what tariffs bring in. But sure, bullish.
The math is still a bit fuzzy on this. A $2k dividend for everyone under the income cap costs way more than what the tariffs have actually pulled in so far. Plus, bypassing Congress on spending is a massive legal hurdle that’ll likely end up in the Supreme Court. I’ll believe it when I see the deposit.
Capital One has decided to acquire Brex for $5.15 billion!
Capital One plans to acquire the stablecoin fintech company Brex in a $5.15 billion cash-and-stock deal.
Speculation suggests this move could pave the way for the direct integration of USDC payments within one of the largest US banks, potentially marking a significant shift in USDC adoption across traditional banking services.
A clear intersection between major banks and stablecoins… and the financial transformation is accelerating from within 🏦🚀