Three Things (11/1)

Export controls

New U.S. export controls may compel artificial-intelligence giant Nvidia to cancel next-year's orders for its advanced chips to China. The latest estimates peg the impacts at ~$5 billion in revenue. The restrictions on AI chips are part of a wider effort by the Biden administration to curtail China’s access to advanced chips, AI tools, and other technology. 

Nvidia is certainly bearing the brunt of AI restrictions (so far) but the constraints could have the intended impact the federal government is hoping for. It’s estimated that using Nvidia’s V100, a less-capable AI chip launched in 2017, would lead to 30% higher costs to train AI systems which could meaningfully hurt the bottom lines of companies attempting to race ahead.

Bitcoin rally

Bitcoin reached new year-to-date highs as the cryptocurrency climbed to $35,000. The world’s largest crypto currency has maintained positive short-term momentum and has ripped higher amid rising hopes that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will soon approve the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Bitcoin’s rally has also buoyed the entire crypto space and reignited momentum behind Ethereum as well.

Throughout the recent market decline, Bitcoin’s performance has been highly correlated with broader market moves. Said differently: if growth stocks were down, it’s likely Bitcoin was too. The token has more than doubled from last year’s epic collapse, creating an interesting divergence in correlation as stocks have dropped and bond yields have surged. The rationale? Geopolitical tensions and growing bullishness around the ETF are helping, but how long can it last?

Big bets

Billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller said he’s bought “massive” bullish positions in two-year notes, as he’s become more worried about the economy. In recent weeks, “I started to get really nervous,” Druckenmiller said in an interview. “So I bought massive leveraged positions” in the short-term notes, he said. Druckenmiller has joined other prominent investors such as Bill Ackman and Bill Gross in sounding the alarm bells on the economy.

What's interesting is that Druckenmiller is also shorting (betting against) longer-term bonds while buying short term paper in bulk. What does this mean? It’s a long-short bet that suggests that he is expecting the yield curve to steepen, a move that typically happens when the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates. The aforementioned scenario would be a divergence from expectations and likely be a result of some nasty volatility ahead.

Disclosures:

As of writing, NVDA is a holding in Titan Flagship and Bitcoin and Ethereum are holdings in Titan Crypto.