The recent consumer price index release showed inflation increased 8.3% over the last year.Traders expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates another 75 basis points in its September meeting.Rising interest rates can benefit banks by boosting their net interest income.Over the past year, inflation has remained stubbornly high, wreaking havoc for consumers and investors alike. Economists hoped August would bring better news, but it didn't.Earlier this week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its August data for the consumer price index, which measures the changes in the costs of consumer goods. The release showed that prices were up 8.3% on an annual basis, with higher food and housing costs offsetting lower energy prices.Now investors look to the Federal Reserve, which ha

SQQQ provides 3x inverse 1-day returns of the Nasdaq 100 Index.Levered ETFs provide positive convexity in the direction of the bet.Daily rebalancing of exposure causes value decay, especially in volatile markets.Investors who are afraid of market volatility often turn to inverse exchange-traded funds ("ETFs") such as the Proshares UltraPro Short QQQ ETF (NASDAQ:SQQQ) to protect their portfolios.In my opinion, investors should consider reducing their long exposures instead of seeking inverse ETFs as a hedge, especially for holding periods of longer than a few days due to the volatility "decay" from daily rebalancings.Fund OverviewAs the name suggests, the Proshares UltraPro Short QQQ ETF seeks daily returns that is -3x the return of the Nasdaq-100 Index. The fund achieves the -3x daily retu

Apparently, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk wasn’t always eager to put robots on the production floor. However, it seems that Musk is now ready to accept and even embrace the automation revolution. He’s even getting ready to unveil a robotics project with implications far beyond car manufacturing. It’s a risky proposition, to be sure, yet I am bullish on Tesla stock nonetheless.Electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla is known for its controversy-courting chief executive as much as its sleek, powerful cars and trucks. Musk pioneered, or at least popularized, the vehicle electrification movement in America.Now, however, he’s preparing to expand into a new but related business venture. Consequently, Tesla stock investors will need to be on board with Musk’s evolving vision of what EV produ

Back-to-school supplies and updates to your autumn wardrobe are popular things on people's shopping lists these days. Noted investor and Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, meanwhile, has been scooping up shares of growth stocks for her various ARK exchange-traded funds (ETFs).While I can't say that I agree with all of Wood's stock purchases over the past few months, there are some stocks that her funds have snatched up that would seem to fit well in other growth investors' portfolios. They include Ginkgo Bioworks, Monday.com, and Trimble. Let's find out a bit more about these three Cathie Wood stocks that are worth more consideration.1. Ginkgo BioworksA leader in the field of synthetic biology, or synbio, Ginkgo Bioworks specializes in providing its customers with improved molecules. Essentially,

CrowdStrike HoldingsThe fourth and final next-generation tech stock billionaires can't stop buying is cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike Holdings. Billionaire Steve Cohen of Point72 Asset Management purchased over 819,000 shares of CrowdStrike during the second quarter, which ultimately boosted Point72's stake to 955,234 shares.What makes CrowdStrike tick is the company's AI-powered Falcon security platform. Falcon oversees in the neighborhood of 1 trillion events on a daily basis, which allows the platform to become more adept at recognizing and responding to potential end-user threats. While CrowdStrike doesn't offer the cheapest cybersecurity solutions, the fact that its gross retention rate is hovering around 98% clearly implies that Falcon is effective.Something else to consider about Cr

Interest rate rises have only just begun This week, theReserve Bank of Australia raised rates for seventh consecutive month to 2.85%. The hike came as no surprise after September inflation hit 7.3%. Many analysts were also tipping a 0.50% increase over the 0.25% the RBA implemented. RBA governor Philip Lowe attributed the increase to “global factors” and “strong domestic demand”. Mr Lowe also expects inflation to continue rising and peak at about 8% later this year. The big four bank in Australiapassed on the rate raise to consumers. Over in the US, the Federal Reserve raised rates by 0.75% with Fed chairman Jerome Powell saying it would be “very premature” to think about pausing any interest rate rises. “The committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2% objective,” he a

The Fed's forecast for rate hikes was more hawkish than expected.Even the usually implied volatility melt didn't help to lift stocks.The S&P 500 could probably fall to around 3,100.After several attempts to rein in the stock market, the Fed may have figured it out. The message was clear enough for a golden retriever(I have two) to understand. There was nothing cryptic or reading of the tea leaves to understand it.Powell struck the point again, reiterating his stance at Jackson Hole about his commitment to reining in inflation, which would create below-trend growth rates and higher unemployment. What solidified this commentary was the FOMC summary of economic projections, which laid it all out very nicely.There was nothing the equity market could cling to that it could twist and turn to

BloombergThe QQQ has not revisited its lows of approximately $270 witnessed on June 16, remaining roughly 10% higher, which would suggest that the QQQ is overvalued versus the iShares TIPS BOND ETF (TIP) and could see further losses in the near term. The higher yields rise, the lower the TIP ETF sinks, and the greater the downside risk for the QQQ ETF.Real Rates vs. Earnings YieldOne way to check against this is to look at the spread between the Nasdaq 100 earnings yield and the current 10-Yr TIP Rate. Currently, that spread is 3.6%, and despite the Nasdaq 100 trading more than 25% off its November 2021 intraday highs, the index is more expensive today versus the 10-yr real yield than at any other point since 2010.BloombergIt's remarkable because the falling Nasdaq hasn't kept pace with th

This year’s crypto market crash was the worst in the short history of the asset class. That much is true, simply given how many more people were affected in the wake of it as opposed to previous crypto crashes. But is crypto dead as a result? The answer is a bit loaded. What is certain, though, is that a fundamental change will be occurring in the crypto market for years to come.The past two years have been great for crypto’s exposure to the mainstream. At this point, everybody and their mother has at least heard of Bitcoin (BTC-USD). Last fall, countless guides cropped up in response to this, telling people how to navigate crypto questions from family members over the holidays. Celebrities started flocking to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through Bored Ape Yacht Club as well.Throughout 2021,

Earnings Watch: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft plan to announce crucial results amid doubts about the economy, and they will all report in the biggest week of earnings season Meta Platforms Inc. and other large tech companies, once easy bets for growth, report earnings that could show a different trajectory in the week ahead. The biggest week of third-quarter earnings season will also likely be its most anxiety-ridden, as an onslaught of onetime surefire tech giants prepare to report amid staffing cutbacks and signs of slowing demand for digital ads, e-commerce and smartphone sales. The dyspepsia for tech investors begins Tuesday, with earnings from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL). Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. (META) reports on Wednesday.