In today's episode, Kip discusses the incredible opportunities in the market, particularly in bitcoin, and shares why it's a prime time for individual investors to seize the moment.

Don’t look back because the market is closed. Good Monday afternoon, everyone. Kip Herriage here with the Daily VRA investing podcast. Hope you had a good day. Hope your weekend is fantastic as well. Let’s get right to it. Let’s talk about bitcoin, of course, is on everybody’s mind going to cover what’s happening there, which is just extraordinary. It really just the, in my career, this is the single best opportunity for the little guy to take advantage of the big is what we’re seeing now is the equivalent of having inside information and being able to act on it legally.

That’s what’s happening here. Well, I’m going to talk about that in a minute. Also, a big week here. Tomorrow we get the CPI data, several PPI data on Thursday, and a number of inflationary type reports that know instruct us to what the Fed’s going to do when they meet next week, which is likely going to be to do nothing but stand pat. Don’t expect a whole lot from the Fed, but we’ll see if this inflationary data is weak or strong. It’ll certainly be very telling. And then what happened on Friday? We have to talk about that Friday. Navidea got slammed, had a big outside day reversal.

[00:01:18]:
Bearish outside day on Friday, closing down five and a half percent. That’s a loss of like $250,000,000,000 in market cap. At one point it was down and down another 2% today, by the way. So the semis followed Nvidia down 3.9% on Friday, today down another 1.7%. So as we cover here, often ad nauseam, the semis lead in both directions. So that action is key and we’re watching it closely. However, the eternals today, as negative as you might think that the semi signal is, the internals today continue to be good. And that’s really what’s been supportive of this move higher.

This broadening action is taking place now is that the internals have really gotten better. And even today, with the big losses, the internals were good today. So let’s get to it. First of all, the markets, Dow Jones was our winner on the day, the only index up on the day, up 46 points, only one 10th to 1%, but we’ll take it. SBF hunter was down one 10th to 1%. Nasdaq down four tenths of 1%. Rust 2000 small caps, which have been leading, did not lead today, down eight tenths of 1%. And again, semis down 1.7% of the day.

We also got some ominous information over the weekend. I say ominous, a little tongue in cheek. When both barons and the economists put pictures of bulls talking about the big bull market on the weekend covers, this is typically a big contrarian signal, but it’s a little overblown. Frankly, it’s not as accurate as people have been led to believe. There are times where they’ve marked tops and there are times where they mark bottoms. Talking about barons, specifically economists, is frankly a joke. It’s a far less globalist rag now, so I don’t really put much stock in them. Barron’s, of course, is much more respected and well read than the economist is.

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But still, that got our attention when we woke up Saturday morning and saw both of these publications with bulls on the COVID Not exactly what you want to see. We report the facts and then we see where things flesh out. We made a decision that even in light of the overbought nature of this market, even with these bearish indicators, the outside reversal day and the semis and Navidea, and of course, these barons and economist covers, we made a decision that really the same decision we’ve been making all along from the bear market lows of October 13, 2022, that we’re not going to act prematurely, we’re not going to act in haste and jump out of the market, try to day trade, try to get too cute, as we phrased it here. Now we’re in this for the long run, and we’re in a bull market of size and scope that’s headed a lot higher. So we’re going to continue to use weakness to add to positions in semis and tech and other key areas that we like, but specifically semis and tech, because again, they lead in both directions. Also, in this morning’s very letter, I recap some of the, not some of, I think these are all of our forecast as we started 2024. Let me just go through this quickly with you, because they’re unchanged. We have not changed anything.

We continue to expect interest rates to decline. The ten year will finish the year below three and a half percent. Right now it’s 4.1%. The Fed will cut rates three to four times. I think Tyler says two to three times, I’m three to four. We’re right there in the same ballpark. We continue to be extraordinarily bullish on equities, looking for a 20% move higher this year, plus in the SP of 100 more so in small caps. Looking for 40% gains in small caps this year.

We think they’re going to lead everything this year, again, this is just the second year of a powerful new generational bull market. That’s how we’re treating it as we think it should be treated. And it’s got a long ways to go in our opinion. Bitcoin, let’s talk about that now. Our forecast there, bitcoin, is going to break 100,000. If you’ve been listening to us, you know, that’s been the case for a while and I think it’s going to happen in and around the April having, which is like 38 days away now. So maybe just before, just after. But I think today it’s right now trading at 72,141.

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Hit another all time high today, 72,700, another all time high. And I think again, 100,000 by the April having with upside potential in 2024 to 200,000. I’ve seen forecasts that say even more than that from people that I respect, but that’s our forecast. That’s what we’re going to stick with here. Obviously, longer term, much more bullish. Still looking for a million dollars in bitcoin. And it won’t stop there. It’s just a number.

It’s a number that Kathy Wood picked out. She thinks by 2030 bitcoin will hit a million. Although she’s hedging, you can tell she thinks it’s going to happen sooner. I think she’s right. I agree with that. It’s just the best supply demand story on the planet. And I’m going to cover some more details about that in a moment. But gold.

Gold, our target on gold again, unchanged, $2,400 minimum announce for gold this year. Right now we’re just below $2,200 an ounce with 3000 announced possible. On the upside. And we think the miners, that’s GDX, the minor ETF. We have positions in some junior miners. We think the miners put up big gains this year, 75% they’re due, they’re hated, they’re unowned, not just under owned, they’re unowned pretty much. And of course, all the excitement has been bitcoin. So that’s the reality of it.

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But open interest really plummeted. People stopped talking about it. Everyone said gold is going to keep going down. And of course, that typically marks a bottom. It’s just the rubber band stretched too far in the other direction. And with gold at all time highs, which is where it is again today. And the miners not participate, although they really have been participating from last October, but in a longer time frame. No, they have not.

They’ve been a terrible place to have money, but we think that’s going to change as well. Again, the key point here is we’re in a structural bull market of size and scope. Structural meaning that it’s driven by economic strength, corporate strength, consumer strength. And as we outlined in the big bribe, this will be driven also by the innovation revolution. This is one of our five megatrends. We put in the big bribe and we are in the roaring two thousand and twenty s. And it’s going to result in the strongest US equity market since the 1995 to 2000 melt up again. A generational bull market remain locked in.

Folks, this is a market you want to be part of for a long time. And we think we’re in 1996 right now, so we got at least four years to go. Actually we think it extends further. This is going to be a very special bull market by the dip will remain the smartest of smart money strategies based on the way we see things here. A few more points on bitcoin. Okay, a second ago I said that bitcoin is a single best opportunity for the individual and it’s really the ability to front run the big guys before they can get in. And that it’s equivalent of having inside information that’s legal to act on. So what I mean by that, and I think a lot of you understand this, but I’ll cover it quickly.

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The big tenets of the reasons to be bullish, that we have been bullish. Bitcoin, obviously the ETF approvals from the SEC. Game changer, right? Absolute game changer. At the root of that though, again, this is the best supply demand story on the planet. Best supply demand story of my career. I’m mesmerized by it as you can probably tell. It consumes me. I’m barely sleeping at night, I’m watching the ticks.

I’ve only done this around elections and around specific events that had the markets in turmoil. But I’ve never done it for a single investment and I’m doing it now. If that sounds like Toppy, it sounds like I’m saying, well maybe that’s a top because I’m over engaged. Believe me, I’ve weighed that too. I just don’t think it’s the case with only 21 million bitcoin to ever be mined. With the having coming next month, again, we’re like 38 days away from the having. And with 80% of holders refusing to sell the Hodlers, this demand is just going to keep driving price up. And again, it’s just so many firms cannot buy.

They’ve really made their bed. Now they must sleep in it. Vanguard. I forgot their name on Thursday and Friday’s podcast. Thank you to all of you out there that have been sending me the name to remind me just complete brain freeze Vanguard. I was actually had Naveen in my mind for some reason. Vanguard was the name I was thinking about again, the second largest money management firm, if you can call them that, they basically sequester money with all these funds. That they really, and again, to have the ability to vote and to have to move corporate policy is really like Blackrock does, is just unbelievable.

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This has been allowed to happen, but as we know, money talks. But anyway, Vanguard, $7 trillion in assets under management only, second only to Blackrock with $10 trillion under management. They just saw Tim Buckley announce his resignation a week and a half ago. I mean, he’d been there 33 years. He hates bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. He prevented, essentially, it was loud about this, prevented Vanguard from getting into the game. So they don’t have an ETF and their clients can’t buy. These new ETFs can’t buy bitcoin or the new Ts.

It means their financial advisors can’t, the firm can’t, and the clients can’t. Now, if it just stopped at Vanguard, I’d say, okay, that’s a one off. Right? But it doesn’t. It doesn’t. Here are some of the firms that still refuse to allow their clients to invest in bitcoin. This is unbelievable. And by the way, there’s a great Kathy Wood video. I’m going to share it in tomorrow morning’s very letter where she addresses this.

And she said something I had not heard before. She said, they’ve heard that these firms, let me tell you, the firms are, again, Vanguard, JP Morgan, Citi, bank of America, Goldman Sachs AG Edwards, Charles Schwab. None of these firms allow it. Kathy Wood said that their due diligence process, which is what they’re saying, that they’re ultimately probably going to prove it, but it’s going through compliance and due diligence. The attorneys are doing their thing right. In other words, attorneys are building them a shit ton of hours. But Kathy Wood said that this is a three to a six month process, folks. Again, we have the ability now to front run these firms.

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They must be losing so much money. Clients taking funds out, not investing new funds at these firms, instead going to places where you can legally buy, allowed to buy bitcoin or these new ETFs, if you will. So if it’s three to six months. Boy, does that ever make paint for an amazing story. Headed into the end of the or second half of the year. The having of course is huge, but again, it’s really the demand story here. The having only makes it that much more sexy. Okay.

For those that are new here, by the way, just some reference. We’re not newbies here. Okay. Tal and I first bought bitcoin at $600 on the same day. Remember doing it together, learning about it. And we got to get a position here. We recommended to our subscribers here at $2,000 a bitcoin. And then we sold that position at $58,000.

So we really had a great trade there. Sold it just off the all time high in 2021 and then we re recommended it last June I think it was at 28,800. So we’ve got gains of better than 150% now. And question is, are we selling? No, we’re not. We’re actually adding two positions. And we’re also doing some things in our parabolic options program where we’re buying bitcoin options. Now, these new ETFs don’t have options yet, so we’re using another way to buy options on bitcoin. Probably can’t get that out here.

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Our clients will wonder why they’re paying us. But again, there’s some great strategies here to really make as much money as you can in advance of these big guys being allowed to purchase. It’s just an extraordinary setup. Again, in my career, never seen anything like it. No guarantees, folks. Never are. But I think you can tell from what I’m saying, I expect it to go a whole lot higher. A whole lot higher.

But the halvings, we covered this in some detail. But for our newer folks, I want to mention it again. Listen to these results. There have been three having so far. So having basically means it’s going to be twice as expensive to mine bitcoin. And you can only mine, what is it, 450 bitcoin a day. Right now it’s 900. It’s going to drop in 38 days or so.

I think it’ll be a little sooner. Mid April it’s going to fall to 450 bitcoin a day. There are eight to 910 thousand plus bitcoin being purchased every day. That number is not going to go lower. Okay, it’ll fluctuate. There’ll be days with less and days with more. But it’s only going to grow because it’s not just us firms that are going through a compliance and approval process. It’s global firms as well.

[00:15:02]:
Right? I saw the UK today is considering now allowing firms to launch their own ETN exchange traded notes instead of exchange traded funds as we have in the US. But again, that’s a process so happening all over the world. We’ve had three havings to date. The first was in 2012. Bitcoin went from $12 to 964, made 79 times your money. Second, having 2016, bitcoin went up 2900%. The last having 2020, bitcoin went up 700%, seven times your money. So we’ll see what happens now.

But again, buying into this, having front running it, front running all the big guys, again, we have an advantage here, folks. That’s been our approach. This is not a new message from us. We have an advantage here. And it’s something, I think we owe it to ourselves to take advantage of it. And look, if we wind up, if bitcoin has a shakeout, fine, buy more. Right? That’s been our approach. You never want to invest every penny you have.

You always want to keep some in stock, right? Keep some liquidity if you have to sell another position. Because if we get shakeouts, these shakeouts are a buy. We’ve had two shakeouts in the last week. Right? Weekend was it. I lose track of time again. I’m not sleeping very much. I think a lot of you probably aren’t either. But we had a shakeout to what? 50,000? That took place in a hurry.

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It was a 9% shakeout. Then last week we had a 14% bear market. No, I’m sorry, that’s a correction. We had a 14% shakeout last week. And again, they’re over like that. And it’s the shortness of these pauses that I think are very telling because the buyers are waiting. And of course, it’s Blackrock. It’s all these Etfs.

They’re all just waiting to buy along with a lot of smart money investors. And again, the average guy now has an opportunity. So that’s what we’re doing. That is what we recommend. I think after the having, then who? Mean, this gets really crazy. This is probably going to get a little nuts. Okay, it’s probably going to get nuts. What else today? Let’s get to the internals today.

I talked about it earlier, the internals today, I checked them earlier today and I was like, what? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing here. We had, the semis were down another two and a half percent at the open. Right? Nasdaq down big again. We finished well off those lows again. Dow Jones finished positive. So another good recovery day, another good smart money hour. But here are the internals, and they were good on Friday, by the way, too. In that big downdraft on Friday, we had more stocks advance on NYSE than decline.

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Not by much, but there were more. Nasdaq only had about 400 and something stocks more decline than advance. Again, this is very good action on a Nasdaq on a day where the semis got hit hard again and Nasdaq was down 65 points. Volume volume was flat on Nasdaq again. You’d expect it to be much worse than this. I think if we were looking at big selling pressures coming in, it would be. That’s the point. This is very healthy action on a market.

Pause. NYSE volume positive by about $500 million worth of trading. That’s not a whole lot, but still positive. When on a day where the SBF hundred was down on the day. And finally, new 52 highs to lows again. This is the one that’s really starting to get our attention again today. It wasn’t earth shattering. We had 221 stocks in new 50 a kai to just 100 and 152 a globe.

But these readings we had back to back days on Thursday Friday of more than 600 stocks hitting 52 akai. That’s pretty good. We’re getting back into confirmed bull market action, which is it’s been a delay. It’s taken time. I don’t believe it’s going to be long. First of all, seasonally speaking, the first half of March is not extraordinarily bullish. It’s actually kind of weak. This market has not cared about that.

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But I think we’re going to get back to before we have a peak. Probably sometime in May, maybe a seller may go away kind of thing. Before that happens, I think we’re going to get back to having days with more than 1000 stocks hitting a new 53 kind. Feels like to me we’re headed that direction. Again, very healthy action today. Anything other than that, we tell you we’re not perma bulls, we’re not perma bears. We try not to be either one of those. Okay.

I’d much rather be bullish. It’s so much more fun to be bullish and be in a bull market. So yeah, I’m an optimist. I do skew to that. However, if our system, VRA system sits out of ten out of twelve screens are bullish, that’s back at the truck territory. And if we saw negative action, we would report it to you here in our daily letters and podcasts. Just not seeing it and again, for the semis to take the hit that they’ve had and the market to hold up, I think that’s a tell. CPI action tomorrow should be pretty interesting.

Get the CPI data at 830 Eastern tomorrow morning. In our sector watch today, mixed bag here. Five sectors finished higher, six finished lower. Led to the downside by not much really here. Industrial is down half percent. Two other sectors, real estate, consumer discretionary, down half percent. Really nothing here happening to the upside. Materials up 1.1%.

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Energy up 1%. Love energy stocks here, as you know, extender. Staples also up half percent. We’re going to call all of this the internals and sector watch. We’re going to call it mixed deposit mixed to positive again, especially with what’s happening in the world of semis and tech. Taking a little bit of a breather here, but they’ve been on fire. This feels like textbook bull market action to me. Again, we reported that for a long time.

I just don’t think any of the exchange looks very good. Gold today, again, boy, you heard me earlier. Big gold bugs here, especially for the miners. Miners are up nice today. Up about 2% today. Gold today up $2, announced at 21 8200. Breakout here has already taken place. We’re at all time highs.

This move higher is going to continue in our opinion. Silver up $0.13, announced at 24 68. I’m seeing people saying silver is going to have an even bigger run. That’s not uncommon. Right. And we know our exposure here. We typically recommend how we’re positioned. Is 70 to 30, 80 20.

[00:21:41]:
Definitely more in the gold camp than silver camp. That might want to be in a mistake. I just always like the yellow metal. That’s just been my personal preference. But again, having a position in both is smart. Copper today up three cents a pound to three. Ninety two a pound. Again, very constructive.

Dr. Copper, global economy at all is important. Looks very good. Crude oil up eight cents a barrel today at 78 or nine. But again, energy stocks were a big today. Very good to see. Finally, it’s getting a late quote on bitcoin. 72,206.

It’s just 400. $500 off all time highs. Again, these little pauses are not lasting long. Who knows? Tonight it could get crazy. Again, it’s up 2.3% in the last 24 hours. Again, 72,201. All right, folks, hey, always appreciate you for listening. Hope you had a great day and even better night.

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We’ll see you back here again tomorrow after the close.