Today’s letter is brought to you by Lava!
Lava’s bitcoin-backed line of credit allows you to unlock your bitcoin’s purchasing power— instantly, flexibly, and securely— without selling your bitcoin.
Borrow dollars in real time with no monthly payments, open terms, and the lowest fixed interest rates in the industry— starting at just 5%.
Lava is the only bitcoin lending platform available globally—you can borrow from any country or state.
With Lava, you can access a full suite of bitcoin-powered financial tools:
* → Borrow dollars instantly
* → Earn 5% APY ****on your USD balance
* → Buy bitcoin with zero fees
It’s everything you need to grow your bitcoin wealth— without ever selling your bitcoin.
To investors,
The US economy is in a very weird position. We are watching companies accelerate their earnings, while the job market is declining at a rapid pace. You will read headlines about how great everything is going followed by headlines about how horrible everything is.
Both perspectives are true. It just depends where you are looking.
Take corporate earnings as a positive example. Creative Planning’s Charlie Bilello writes “with 70% of companies reported, S&P 500 operating earnings are up 19% year-over-year, the 11th straight positive quarter and highest growth rate since Q4 2021.”
Given how well corporations are doing, you would expect investors to be euphoric. Their portfolios are growing in value and stocks keep climbing higher. But in the surprise of the year, investors are incredibly negative right now.
Carson Group’s Ryan Detrick points out investor sentiment currently sits at Extreme Fear even though “a few days ago the S&P 500, Russell 2000, Dow, Nasdaq, and Nasdaq-100 all closed at new monthly all-time highs.”
It is crazy to think about stocks at all-time highs, yet investor sentiment in the toilet. Those are the type of ingredients that almost certainly guarantee we can’t be at a market top.
The sentiment divergence is not exclusive to investors either. Jim Bianco shows consumer sentiment is falling rapidly as well. He writes “Red is the stock market. It’s going straight up. Rate cuts help. Blue is consumer sentiment, it’s going straight down and is near a multi decade low. Inflation (affordability) is driving this measure lower. Rate cuts hurt.”
Lets go back to investors for a second though. Ryan Detrick goes on to explain that the market is overwhelmed with bearish investors. They are everywhere. He writes “AAII bulls minus bears is -11.1% in 2025. Only 3 other times has this ever been -10% and all happened in bear markets (1990, 2008, and 2022). Incredibly, bears outnumber bulls by 11.1% in ‘08, the exact same level as in 2025 so far.”
But the dichotomy gets even weirder when you dig deeper into the data. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was asked about the US economy last night in an interview and he said “Which way is the stock market going? Up, up, up! Which way is the economy going? 3.8% last quarter... the economy is on fire because Donald Trump’s economy is one that says... BUILD IN AMERICA.”
Lutnick is not wrong. But contrast that with the jobs data that came out this morning. CNBC’s Jeff Cox explains:
“Job cuts for the month totaled 153,074, a 183% surge from September and 175% higher than the same month a year ago. It was the highest level for any October since 2003. This has been the worst year for announced layoffs since 2009.”
So the economy is booming but the job market is deteriorating. Stocks are flying higher, yet sentiment is succumbing to gravity. The obvious culprits are artificial intelligence and interest rate cuts. Both trends help corporations and asset owners at the expense of the average citizen who has little to no investment assets.
I don’t know what the solution to this problem is. The complexity here is hard to overstate. You can’t allow corporations and asset owners to be destroyed because job losses will only accelerate. You can’t continue to have half of the country being financially destroyed due to technology, economic conditions, and a lack of financial education.
This may be one of the great challenges of our time. We have to walk a tight rope between these opposing forces. A potential solution is to get more Americans invested in the capitalist system. Programs like Invest America, which wants to fund a stock brokerage account for every baby born in America, could have a positive impact. The issue with a program like that is it will take decades to see the impact.
It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue the program. We just can’t count on it as a magic solution today. One idea I have been thinking through is a “Stock Dividend” to the American people. It could work as a potential tax rebate. The government would determine an amount to be returned to every citizen, but rather than pay in cash, the government would deliver shares of the S&P 500 or Nasdaq.
There are a lot of nuances that would have to be figured out. And we have to remember a large portion of the country doesn’t pay federal income tax, so you would have to account for those people in the program too. But this type of creative, entrepreneurial idea would get every American a stake in the economic system. It would have a profoundly positive impact on their financial life and it would likely create a less divisive political environment.
The people are screaming they need help. How the government, the economy, and corporations decide to respond will determine a lot about the next few years in the United States.
Hope everyone has a great day. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
- Anthony Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Bitcoin’s Big Risk Exposed
Jeff Park is the Partner and Chief Investment Officer at ProCap BTC. In this conversation, we dive into the current bitcoin market cycle — why price sentiment has shifted, whether younger investors are losing interest, and where the next wave of buyers could come from.
Jeff also breaks down how both macro forces like interest rates and micro market dynamics are influencing bitcoin’s trajectory, and reacts to Scott Bessent’s viral tweet that might signal a turning point for crypto markets.
Enjoy!
Podcast Sponsors
* Figure – Lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% at 50% LTV and 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin or SOL. Check out Figure and their Crypto Backed Loans! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply. Visit figure.com for more information.
* BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 75+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $1,000 in rewards.
* Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithm tools ignite profits, harnessing razor-sharp data analytics to nail perfect entries, exits, and risk management. Turn volatility into opportunity and do it hands free with Arch Public. (Oh, and yes, try us out for FREE too!)
* Defi Development Corp - DeFi Development Corp. (Nasdaq: DFDV) is building the first Solana-focused public treasury, giving investors exponential exposure to Solana’s growth.
* easyBitcoin - Stack sats with easyBitcoin.app—earn 1% extra on buys, 2% annual rewards and 4.5% APY on USD. Download it at easybitcoin.app today.
* Bitizenship – Get EU citizenship through Portugal’s Golden Visa, maintaining Bitcoin exposure. Book a free strategy call at bitizenship.com/pomp.
* Bitwise Asset Management - Crypto specialist asset manager with more than $10 billion client assets and more than 30 crypto solutions across ETFs, index funds, alpha strategies, staking, and more. Learn more at bitwiseinvestments.com
* Xapo Bank: Fully licensed private bank and virtual assets services provider that integrates traditional finance and Bitcoin. Earn up to 3.6% in BTC over USD Savings. Spend globally with a debit card that gives up to 1% cashback in BTC. The Pomp Audience Exclusive: Receive $150 discount when they join with this link.
* Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/
* Zkverify - A modular blockchain dedicated to efficiently verifying zk proofs across diverse blockchain stacks.
* Bitlayer - Bitlayer is powering Bitcoin beyond just a store of value, making Bitcoin DeFi a reality while staying true to its core principles of security and decentralization. Learn more about Bitlayer at https://x.com/BitlayerLabs
🚨READER NOTE: If you want to sponsor The Pomp Letter, you can fill out this form and someone from our team will get in touch with you.
You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.
