Summing Up The Week

This was one of those weeks where the stock market barely had time to digest one headline before the next one hit the tape.

Investors were forced to navigate a perfect storm of corporate drama, stubborn inflation, and renewed fears that the Federal Reserve may need to keep monetary policy tighter for longer.

From shocking developments at Nvidia that sent one of the market's most important companies into turmoil, to hotter-than-expected CPI and PPI reports that rattled rate-cut hopes, volatility returned in force as traders struggled to find their footing.

Market News

Nvidia CEO admits to having affair with alleged Chinese spy

On Sunday, CEO Jensen Huang of Nvidia (NVDA) told staff in an email that he had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy and that the board of directors had opened an independent investigation, reported CNBC.

"I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children,” Huang wrote in the email he sent to his staff. “There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry."

U.S. intelligence agencies have expressed concerns that the woman, Alice Huang, who is affiliated with a cloud company and an Nvidia customer called Megaspeed, has been passing information to Beijing, according to reports in The New York Times and the Financial Times.

Initially, the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and even Bitcoin saw a rapid selloff and equally rapid recovery on the news.

Consumer prices rose 0.4% in October and hotter than expected

On Tuesday, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) revealed inflation increased by 0.4% in October, higher than the Dow Jones estimate of 0.3% and a sign the Federal Reserve likely needs additional interest rate hikes, reported CNBC.

Analysts warned that the return of an increase in the rate of inflation will challenge markets going forward. "This was the report the market could least afford to see," said Karen Manna, Fixed Income Investment Strategist at Federated Hermes "A hotter inflation print raises fresh questions about whether the Fed has done enough to contain price pressures and reinforces the risk that interest rates need to move higher and stay there for longer."

As a result, both S&P 500 and Nasdaq opened in the red on Tuesday with the S&P down a little more than -0.50% and the Nasdaq down a little more than -0.60% at the open.

Nvidia CEO resigns after additional affair revealed

On Thursday, Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang announced he would resign from the company he founded after a second affair - this with an executive at the company who reported to him - was revealed Wednesday evening, reported CNBC. Colette Kress, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Nvidia, was named interim CEO.

Nvidia's stock, already beaten down from the weekend's revelations, sold off more than an additional 10% during premarket trading and opened Thursday's trading more than -35% off its all-time high.

October's wholesale annual inflation at 6.5%, highest in almost 4 years

On Friday, the Producer Price Index (PPI) showed wholesale prices rose 0.3%, slightly less than the 0.4% estimate but still putting PPI at 6.5% on an annual basis, its highest level since November 2022, reported CNBC.

Analysts warned that the PPI reinforces the expectation of the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at their next meeting in December, "Today’s PPI data – which shows some signs of improving, albeit still too-high – is unlikely to change the Fed’s approach in December because the CPI data was already outside their comfort zone," said Chris Zaccarelli, Chief Investment Officer for Northlight Asset Management. 

While initially the market opened in the green on an attempted relief rally over Thursday's Nvidia-led selloff, those green shoots quickly turned red within the first 15 minutes of trading.

Next Week's Gameplan

Next week's big news is the Anthropic (ANT) IPO which is scheduled to price on Wednesday and launch on Thursday. The first of the two big AI companies (the other being OpenAI), the way this IPO performs will provide a lot of insight into the market's appetite for all things AI. The IPO is expected to price between $70-$78 a share with a market capitalization of $1.4 trillion, more than $500 billion higher than where Anthropic was valued during its most recent fund raise from a few months ago.

Meanwhile in market news, we'll get retail sales numbers on Tuesday, housing starts on Wednesday, and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey on Friday.

As if that wasn't enough, Nvidia (NVDA), now mired down in the controversy of its CEO, Jensen Huang, stepping down after having an affair with an alleged Chinese spy and now reportedly affairs with multiple employees, will report earnings on Tuesday After the Market Closes (AMC).

Plus, I'll be watching my following positions report next week, too:

Tuesday: Disney reports Before Market Open (BMO), Nvidia reports AMC.
Wednesday: Glass House (GLAS) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW) report AMC.

So, there's no question there should be plenty to talk about when we reconvene back here next Friday, friends!

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Crytpo Corner

Bitcoin Price Action

Permabulls and permabears are essentially mirror opposites of the same mindset, and it’s almost hilarious watching when the price action works against them. Case in point, when Bitcoin decimated last week’s key support levels, I saw permabulls change their tune and suddenly claim that they had warned a pullback to $60K was in the works.

Not so much.

Every permabull I follow (and there are many) was talking about how Bitcoin’s “never fallen” below the 200-Day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) once it’s retaken it as support, and that the crypto was headed into a new bull market.

… and then Sunday happened. And Monday. And Tuesday. And Thursday. And Friday.

Bitcoin obliterated the weekly-low at $75,035.10 and made short work of the key support level of $74,887.50 made in September. In fact, even the 200-Day Simple Moving Average (SMA) was taken out on Tuesday (coincidentally filling my next buy order which was right above the 150-Day SMA just below it).

Bitcoin wasn’t able to find support until the deathdrop stopped at $67,555.00 on Friday… and even that support is tenuous, at best.

Naturally, the Bears are throwing a “toldyaso” party and, truthfully, they deserve it. They called this move in Bitcoin. I’ve been pointing to my Crypto Winter Playbook for months now, warning that this Crypto Winter’s selloff has been too shallow and that we should expect bad things to happen in November.

Guess what? It’s November.

I take no pride or happiness in foreseeing this pullback myself. I’m a long-term bull. In addition to the 20%+ allocation I have on in my current trade, I also hold substantial Bitcoin and crypto holdings that I’ve accumulated over the near-decade I’ve been trading them (I keep my profits in the crypto I trade).

I don’t short and I don’t hedge so that means when Bitcoin crashes, it destroys my net worth along with it. My holdings are a mere shadow of what they were at the all-time highs, and my portfolios and net worth would be faring a lot better if I was wrong about this pullback and this Crypto Winter was actually over.

However, that’s not what good investors do.
We cannot be dogmatic.
This isn’t a religion.

It’s not about picking a team and siding with the Bulls or siding with the Bears. It’s about reviewing the data objectively and making decisions based on what the data tells us regardless of what we want to happen. I have to be able to put myself in a position where I can benefit regardless of which direction the asset heads: if it rallies, I’ll trim profits at key levels. If it sells off, I’ll add to my position at key levels.

This is the way of long-term investing in crypto.

Meanwhile, the Bears are in full control. Bitcoin has lost momentum, failed to turn the Next Support of Last Resort from resistance into support, and, consequently, has cascaded down, flipping almost every key moving average into resistance along the way.

My Crypto Winter Playbook remains intact and it indicates further downside. Will Bitcoin crash 50% or more below the current bottom at $57K as it did in past Crypto Winters? Who knows? As I said above, my job isn’t to predict the future, it’s to determine what the data tells us and make a plan for both directions.

My top priority as a long-term investor is to consider what could happen and to prepare for any eventuality. Meanwhile, looking at the key selloff targets I’ve been posting for each week below, there’s a lot of downside that could happen from here.

My plan is as it always has been: buy in stages on the way down and keep powder dry on the sidelines just in case the Crypto Groundhog has seen its shadow and it turns out we have a lot more Crypto Winter left before all is said and done.

In the meantime, hang on to your hats. Regardless of which way Bitcoin heads next, this promises to be an exciting time!

Bitcoin Trade Update

Premium subscribers to Get Irked get access to all the moves I've made in my Bitcoin trade over the past week as well as my next thirty (30) ... yes, 30 ... buys in Bitcoin including price levels, quantities, and a full layout of my ongoing long-term trade in the world's biggest crypto.

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Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto...

In light of brokerage failures in 2022, I no longer keep any of my crypto on an exchange and I only keep enough USD on the exchanges I use to execute my next few buys. I use multiple cold wallets from the brands Ledger and Trezor to hold my crypto (click the links to access the direct sites, and I receive no affiliate benefits from these links).

No price target is unrealistic in the cryptocurrency space – Bullish or Bearish.

While traditional stock market investors and traders may think the price targets in the cryptocurrency space are outlandish due to the incredible spread (possible moves include drops of -90% or more and gains of +1000% or more), Bitcoin has demonstrated that, more than any speculative asset, its price is capable of doing anything.

Here are some of Bitcoin's price movements over the past couple of years:

• In 2017, Bitcoin rose +2,707% from its January low of $734.64 to make an all-time high of $19,891.99 in December.
• Then, Bitcoin crashed nearly -85% from its high to a December 2018 low of $3128.89.
• In the first half of 2019, Bitcoin rallied +343% to $13,868.44.
• In December, Bitcoin crashed -54% to a low of $6430.00 in December 2019.
• In February 2020, Bitcoin rallied +64% to $10,522.51.
• In March , Bitcoin crashed nearly -63% to a low of $3858.00, mostly in 24 hours.
• Then, Bitcoin rallied +988% to a new all-time high of $41,986.37 in January 2021.
• Later in January 2021, Bitcoin dropped -32% to a low of $28,732.00.
• In February, Bitcoin rallied +103% to a new all-time high of $58,367.00.
• Later in February, Bitcoin dropped -26% to a low of $43,016.00.
• In April , Bitcoin rallied +51% to a new all-time high of $64,896.75.
• In June , Bitcoin crashed -56% to a low of $28,800.00.
• In November, Bitcoin rallied +140% to a new all-time high of $69,000.00.
• In November 2022, Bitcoin crashed -78% to a low of $15,460.00.
• In April 2023, Bitcoin rallied +101% to a high of $31,050.00.
• In June, Bitcoin dropped -20% to a low of $24,750.00
• In July, Bitcoin rallied +29% to a high of $31,862.21.
• In September, Bitcoin dropped -22% to a low of $24,900.00.
• In January 2024, Bitcoin rallied +97% to a high of $49,102.29.
• Later in January, Bitcoin dropped -22% to a low of $38,501.00.
• In March, Bitcoin rallied +92% to a new all-time high of $73,835.57.
• In August, Bitcoin dropped -33% to a low of $49,050.01.
• In January 2025, Bitcoin rallied +150% to a new all-time high of $109,358.01.
• In April, Bitcoin dropped -32% to a low of $74,420.69.
• In May, Bitcoin rallied +51% to a new all-time high of $112,000.00.
• In June, Bitcoin dropped -12% to a low of $98,247.01.
• In July, Bitcoin rallied +25% to a new all-time high of $123,231.07.
• In September, Bitcoin dropped -14% to a low of $107,250.00.
• In October, Bitcoin rallied +18% to a new all-time high of $126,296.00.
• In July 2026, Bitcoin dropped -54% to a low of $57,717.55.

Where will Bitcoin go from here? Truly, anything is possible…

What if Bitcoin’s headed to zero?

The only reason I speculate in the cryptocurrency space is I truly believe Bitcoin isn’t headed to zero.

I am prepared for that possibility, however, by knowing I could potentially lose all of the capital I’ve allocated to this speculative investment. Professional advisers recommend speculating with no more than 5% of an investor’s overall assets. Personally, I’ve allocated less than that to speculating in crypto.

I feel that anyone who doesn’t fully believe in the long-term viability of cryptocurrency would be better served not speculating in the space.

On a good day, this asset class isn’t suitable for those with weak stomachs. On volatile days, the sector can induce nausea in the most iron-willed speculator. If a speculator isn’t confident in the space, the moves will cause mistakes to be made.

DISCLAIMER: Anyone considering speculating in the crypto sector should only do so with funds they are prepared to lose completely. All interested individuals should consult a professional financial adviser to see if speculation is right for them. No Get Irked contributor is a financial professional of any kind.

Suicide Hotline - You Are Not Alone

Studies show that economic recessions cause an increase in suicide, especially when combined with thoughts of loneliness and anxiety.

If you or someone you know are having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by visiting www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org or calling 1-800-273-TALK.

The hotline is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.