It’s a market eat market world

Hi there, 

Welcome to FinSoar. This week we’re witnessing the potential downfall of Bitcoin, the Fed putting up a brave face, and some hiring troubles. 

(P.S: Don’t forget to send me your feedback, thoughts, and questions like you did last week!)

I know, I know. You just read a report on Bitcoin's diminishing value on FinSoar, but I woke up to some surprising new lows today, so let's examine what happened together.

Bitcoin dropped below $90,000 Tuesday for the first time in seven months. The largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 2.8% before recovering slightly to around $91,137. It's now down more than 26% from its October record above $126,000, wiping out all gains for 2025.

The catalyst remains October 10, when renewed US-China trade tensions triggered $19 billion in leveraged position liquidations. Since that peak, the crypto market has shed more than $1 trillion in value.

The selling pressure has multiple sources. Long-term holders accelerated profit-taking, offloading 815,000 bitcoin over the past 30 days according to CryptoQuant. That's a record high since January 2024.

Bitcoin ETFs are bleeding. The group of 12 spot ETFs saw net outflows of about $2.8 billion in November after adding tens of billions during the post-election rally. Thursday alone saw $870 million in redemptions.

Fed policy looms large. Markets now price in just 40% odds of a December rate cut, down from 90% earlier this month. 

"With Fed December rate cuts pricing below 50% chance now, crypto markets continue to grind lower," Shiliang Tang at Monarq Asset Management told Bloomberg.

The four-year cycle theory is gaining attention. Bitcoin historically peaks between 400 and 600 days after its halving event. The last halving occurred in April 2024. Bernstein analysts called it a "self-fulfilling prophecy" but believe this is a short-term consolidation rather than the 60-70% drawdowns seen in previous cycles.

Not everyone is panicking. Michael Saylor's Strategy bought another 8,178 tokens Monday at $102,171 each for $835 million total. Bernstein sees a potential bottom around $80,000, the range immediately post-Trump election.

Options traders aren't as optimistic. Demand for downside protection at $85,000 and $80,000 strikes is dominating recent flows. Positions worth $950 million were liquidated in the past 24 hours as prices gyrated.

CNBC reports analysts expect more volatility ahead as long-term buyers view the drop as opportunity while trading institutions derisk.

Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg, CNN, Yahoo Finance, CNBC

Mark Spitznagel, who made $1B in a single day during the 2015 flash crash, warns markets are mimicking 1929. Yeah, just another oracle spouting gloom and doom, right?

Vanguard and Goldman Sachs forecast just 5% and 3% annual S&P returns respectively for the next decade (2024-2034).

Bonds? Not much better.

Enough warning signals—what’s something investors can actually do to diversify this week?

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Shares in new offerings can sell quickly but…

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_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd.}

The government is open again but the economy is not back to normal. A six-week shutdown left about 1.25 million federal workers without pay and triggered roughly 10,000 flight cancellations, plus delayed SNAP benefits for 42 million people, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates reported by the Associated Press. 

CBO reckons fourth-quarter growth takes a hit of about 1.5 percentage points, with roughly $11 billion in activity gone for good.

The more invisible damage is in the spreadsheets the Fed usually lives on. Agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis spent 43 days unable to collect much of their usual data. 

Some September reports will finally arrive in coming days, but October looks like a statistical black hole, with key surveys never run and some inflation data likely “lost forever.” Former BLS officials warn that under-staffed agencies will be playing calendar catch-up well into 2026. .

That data gap hits just as the Fed is tearing itself apart over what to do next. Trump-appointed governors like Christopher Waller argue that a weakening labor market justifies another cut at the December 9–10 meeting, and say near-term data will not change that view.

Vice Chair Philip Jefferson and Boston Fed president Susan Collins want to “go slowly” and set a high bar for more easing, especially with inflation still above target. Powell, caught in the middle, has already warned that a December cut is “far from” guaranteed.

Markets are trading that split in real time. CME probabilities and currency desks now treat a December cut as close to a coin flip, and the dollar has firmed as traders wait for the first batch of delayed jobs numbers to hit the tape this week.

Treasury yields have edged lower, with the 10-year around 4.1%, as investors position for a messy “data dump” of payrolls, trade and other reports that were stuck in the queue during the shutdown (CNBC).

Layered on top of all this is a quieter fight over how tightly banks are supervised. Former Fed vice chair for supervision Michael Barr is warning that efforts to roll back examiner coverage and dilute ratings could let risks build in the background, setting up the next boom-bust episode.

Put it together and you get a central bank trying to steer the cycle with fogged-up instruments, noisy data and looser guardrails on finance.

Sources: Bloomberg, the New York Times, CNBC, Reuters, Axios, the Financial Times, The Business Journal, CNN, Reuters

If it feels like everyone is talking about layoffs again, you are not imagining it. U.S. employers announced 153,074 job cuts in October, a 183% jump from September and the highest October total in 22 years. 

That brings announced cuts this year to about 1.1 million, the worst year for layoffs since 2009. Tech companies alone announced 33,281 cuts in October, nearly six times September’s tally, as firms restructure around artificial intelligence and slower growth.

Big brand names are driving a lot of those headlines. 

Amazon is eliminating about 14,000 corporate roles, roughly 4% of its white-collar workforce, in a push to “reduce bureaucracy” and lean into generative AI, which executives say can take over many coordination and reporting tasks once handled by middle managers, according to Fortune. 

Verizon is preparing to cut about 15,000 jobs and franchise roughly 200 stores as it chases cost savings in a brutal wireless and home internet price war. UPS has already shed roughly 48,000 positions this year as part of a turnaround that includes closing dozens of facilities and handling fewer Amazon shipments. 

The catch for laid-off workers is that this is not a classic “fire and then rehire” cycle. One in five U.S. employers told surveyors this summer they planned to slow hiring in the back half of 2025. Retail postings are about 12 percentage points below pre-Covid levels, and Indeed’s Laura Ullrich describes the environment as “low-hire, low-fire.” 

Glassdoor’s Daniel Zhao says hiring rates look more like the early 2010s, even though unemployment has climbed to a four-year high, which makes it harder for laid-off staff and new grads to even get on the ladder, the same article notes.

On the ground, that shows up as anxiety and very long searches. One former Amazon IT support engineer told Business Insider he has already applied to 100 jobs without landing a single interview and is “concerned” but feels he has no choice except to keep going. 

Others describe multiple layoffs since 2019 and say they now plan their lives around the assumption it will happen again. Some workers are trying to get ahead of that risk: building side businesses, quietly taking second full-time jobs, or stockpiling savings so they can walk away from shaky roles.

At least 17,000 job cuts are explicitly tied to AI and another 20,000 to automation and “technological updates,” with tech firms alone shedding about 108,000 jobs so far this year. 

Sources: CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, AP News, Modern Retail, Business Insider

That’s all for today!