Big week: DeepSeek, Fed, tech earnings
Plus new prize announcement for survey competition!
Quick summary:
The Q1 competition is up & running - click here to join the action.
Today, we’re excited to announce an additional prize for last year’s annual leaderboard winners, as well as an additional reward for this year’s top performers:
The top 20 winners from last year’s annual leaderboard will receive a $1000 worth of content for free to the paid subscription of the newsletter for one year.
Starting next year, the reward will expand to include the top 40 participants, giving more people the chance to access premium content.
Access is tied to leaderboard performance—participants must remain in the top 40 annually to retain free access. So it expires in a year if you’re no longer in the top.
The week started off with a brutal sell-off of AI-related stocks following the proof that DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, uses less data at a fraction of the cost of what OpenAI and others use. NVDA went down 17% (biggest ever decline in absolute terms, $590bn of market cap erased), and most other chipmakers followed, along with the stocks of GOOGL, MSFT, etc.
So now, all eyes are back at the Fed on Wednesday, and whether Powell goes dovish or hawkish. But that’s not all, we also get TSLA, MSFT, and META earnings on Wed after close, and then AAPL on Thu after close.
But that’s not all. Some economic data as well: Q4 GDP growth (estimated at 3%) on Thursday and December’s PCE inflation on Friday.
The competition
We're diving into a pivotal week with the FOMC meeting tomorrow, January 29, followed by 3 big tech earnings reports. Let’s position ourselves strategically ahead of Powell’s remarks, which could dictate the next major move in the market.
Competition Update: Additional Rewards for Top Performers!
We’re thrilled to announce an additional incentive for our annual leaderboard competition! The top 20 winners from last year’s annual leaderboard will gain free access to the paid portion of this newsletter for an entire year. This exclusive content, valued at $1,047 annually, is our way of rewarding your outstanding performance in 2024.
But that’s not all—we’ve also added this reward for this year’s competition! Starting next year, the top 40 participants from the 2025 annual leaderboard will also gain free access to the paid portion of the newsletter for one year. This gives even more participants the chance to unlock premium content.
Remember, access to paid content is tied to your annual leaderboard ranking. Winners from last year will need to maintain their spot in this year’s top 40 to keep access beyond 2025. Dropping out of the leaderboard means losing this benefit, so stay active, keep competing, and aim high!
This additional reward is our way of showing appreciation for your engagement and encouraging everyone to push further. Let’s make this year even more exciting—keep playing, stay consistent, and climb to the top!
NOTE: For all those new to the whole thing, read more about it here or watch a video of Scott and myself guiding you through the survey, showing you all its features, and briefly explaining how the competition works.
Last week’s performance
Last week played out pretty much as expected. After the U.S. holiday and Trump’s inauguration on January 20th, markets rallied sharply on Tuesday and Wednesday, breaking above key moving averages and reaching new all-time highs at 6,100 by the week’s end. This marked a significant recovery from the mid-December decline.
Then yesterday, a shocker, with SPX going down 1.5% and NDX 3%, VIX shooting up over 20%. What happened?
Over the weekend, Chinese AI company DeepSeek boasted that they built an AI model that outperforms all existing AI tools developed by US companies, at only a fraction of the cost ($5m compared to $100m that the incumbents used), and by using much fewer GPU units (only 2000 compared to 100,000), which lowers hardware requirements. Needless to say, this was perceived a big threat to NVDA and all chip-makers. NVDA went down 17% during the day, erasing $590bn of their market cap.
The question on everyone’s minds was whether this is actually an opportunity for NVDA or not? Fewer GPUs can mean wider adoption, potentially. It could have been just an immediate market reaction that could rebound in the future. Whether or not it does will depend on other conditions.
Like the FOMC meeting on Wednesday, and then the reaction to a few Big Tech earnings on Wed and Thu. We get MSFT, META, and TSLA after close on Wed, and then AAPL after close on Thu. Expect either a very jumpy week, or a brutal one-directional week. We’re ready for it!
If you haven’t already, read our FOMC playbook for this week.
Beyond the Fed meeting and tech earnings, U.S. GDP data for the fourth quarter, projected at 3% growth, and December’s PCE inflation report will provide further clarity on economic strength and inflation trends.
…join the $32,000x competition!
Join our survey competition to get an opportunity to participate in our quarterly ($8000) and annual (3% of our profits) prize distributions:
DISCLAIMER: Neither the survey nor any of the contents of this website can act as investment advice of any kind. The results of the survey need not correspond to actual market preferences or trends, so they should be interpreted with caution. Oraclum Capital, LLC (Henceforth ORCA) is a management company responsible for running the ORCA BASON Fund, LP, and for organizing a survey competition each week, where it invites the subscribers to its newsletter (this website) to participate in an ongoing prediction competition. The information presented on this website and through the survey competition should under no circumstances be used to solicit any investment advice, nor is it allowed to be of commercial use to any of its readers. The survey and this website contain no information that a user may use as financial or investment advice. All rights reserved. Oraclum Capital LLC.
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