Tuesday's Scoop: Slow ☀️

Hey friend - guess how many days February has this year… 29! If months can reinvent themselves, so can you. Go out and be your best February.

Premium subscribers - be on the lookout for another Scoop app update! They’re coming in FAST now.

Here’s what you need to know today to inform your work, spending, and investments…

1. Bitcoin’s taking off again.

2. Consumers turned more pessimistic about the economy in February.

3. Businesses have cut back on investments in equipment and infrastructure.

Inflation Rate: +3.1% (YoY), +0.3% (MoM)
^{Policymakers aim for 2% YoY inflation.}

Americans lost a little optimism in the economy this month. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell this month after three consecutive months of improvement. Fears of a potential recession have resurfaced amidst layoff announcements, waning savings, and high grocery costs. People are a little less worried about inflation, which is good. Inflation expectations can be self-fulfilling. Consumers power two-thirds of the economy, so economists monitor sentiment closely.

The Market: ⬆️+0.2%
S&P 500: 5,078.18
1Mo: +3% | 1Yr: +27% | 5Yr: +81%

The market drifted sideways today as investors navigated mixed feelings about the economy. End-of-year financial reports have been better than feared, but business investment and consumer sentiment have faded in 2024.

The price of Bitcoin has ascended to multi-year highs since the cryptocurrency was made more accessible to mainstream investors through the stock market. The Securities and Exchange Commission approved several new Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF) linked to Bitcoin in January, allowing mainstream investors to trade crypto like a stock, adding it to their brokerage or retirement portfolios. This has led to massive new inflows into the cryptocurrency of around 3,000 Bitcoin per day, according to CoinDesk. New institutional investors have piled in, making huge purchases. Bitcoin also will undergo a scheduled change to its code in April called a halving that reduces the amount of new supply, pressuring prices further. Beyond that, Ethereum has been on the rise as investors grow enthusiastic about the potential approval of Ethereum ETFs. Bitcoin’s price rose above $57,000 today.

Businesses are showing signs of caution beyond their layoffs, cutting back on big-ticket expenses and investments in equipment. The Commerce Department reported orders for durable goods, anything from computers to trucks meant to last three years or more, plunged 6.1% in January, the steepest decline since April 2020. Reported purchases in December were also revised downward. Much of the decline was due to reduced airplane purchases related to a high-profile malfunction in a Boeing aircraft that stalled orders, but it wasn’t just that. So-called core capital goods orders edged up only 0.1% in January, but a 0.2% gain in December was revised to a -0.6% decline.