Housing Market Optimism ??

In this issue of the Peel:

• ?? Median home prices are currently ~14.7% lower compared to last year.
• ?? Fisker stock closed at $0.09/sh from ~$30/sh highs… get out if you can.
• ?? A human has received Neuralink’s first-ever computer-brain chip implant.

Market Snapshot ??

Banana Bits ??

• At least one branch of the Fed knows how to use technology, with the Chicago Fed National Activity index rising yet again
• Digital assets broke their 7-week stretch of inflows last week
• Maybe we are in a bubble because that’s the only possible way this long-haired mf is back
• Reddit shares are back on top, up 30% to start the week

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Macro Monkey Says ??

If You Build It…

In 1989, a brand new form of American nostalgia was invented when the great, instant classic film Field of Dreams was released.

The house used in the movie, 28995 Lansing Rd in Dyersville, Iowa (population ~4,500), was last sold in 2013 for ? $3.4mn... and yes, it still has a diamond on the property.

At the time the movie was filmed, the median sale price of a home in the U.S. was $118k. Today, that figure sits at $417.7k, a gain of 254%, or about 3.7% annualized. Not quite the return of the iconic property, but not a bad one either.?

Well, I guess it is actually a pretty bad if you’re on the other side of that trade. And, we can blame homebuilders for that as they drastically failed to live up the advice of “if you build it, they will come.”?

The Numbers

Nobody built anything, so nobody came, giving up this chart:

Source

Hard to imagine that home prices now are actually 14.7% lower compared to the same period of the prior year. So, are homebuilders finally living up to the advice from Field of Dreams… for once.?

Last week and through yesterday, the latest data on future housing supply dropped.

According to the Census Bureau:

• Building Permits increased by 2.4% in February while
• Housing Starts increased by 10.7%, and
• Housing Completions increased by 19.7%

These three form the trifecta of “new residential construction” in the U.S.?

All measure a different stage of the process, with permits measuring approvals for new housing units, housing starts representing permits that made it to ground break, and completions representing brand new houses that made it through the whole process.

On average, it takes 8.1 months in the U.S. to complete a single-family home, so consider the building permits index a forward look at the latter two indicators.

The Takeaway?

Everyone wants to move out of their parents house. So, this is some rare—and somewhat minor—good news for those of wasting our time with coloring books and recess when we should’ve been bidding on multifamilies.

The Fed’s signaling that we’re likely at peak interest rates appears to already be doing the job meant for actually lowering interest rates. In theory, the Fed should want to keep rates as high as they can so they have more ammo the next time we slow down.

Source

To be fair, 30-year rates haven’t moved much since we last discussed them. But even without much of a change, the psychology of stabilization is good enough for buyers.

Usually, March to June has the hottest data of the year. But, we’re still talking February and we’re already starting to sweat.

Plus, seeing home prices continue to move lower is certainly a trend prospective buyers can get behind.

Cities like Austin, TX, are already seeing large trend reversals from the gains of recent years, and if this trend is anything like the last, it could be as foreshadowing as Shakespeare.?

That’s not ideal for homeowners—especially those looking to sell and/or move, but at least they don’t have to wonder what the bed-creaking sounds on the other side of their wall in the middle of the night are…

What's Ripe ??

Coinbase (COIN) ??9.5%

• Jim Cramer must’ve shorted BTC this weekend because the digital asset is ripping and, as usual, it’s carrying the rest of the team with it.
• Coinbase and other digital asset stocks surged to start this week as BTC recovered back above $70k after tumbling last week.
• April’s halving event is getting the bulls fired up again. We’ll see if it can live up to the hype, and hopefully with fewer cringy tweets from the “hodlers” this time.

Arm Holdings (ARM) ??3.1%

• Arm really flexed on the entire semi-industry yesterday, especially the likes of Intel and AMD. Those two are getting the boot from China.
• Intel and AMD design their own chips. But, many Chinese chipmakers don’t, giving a huge alley-oop to the king of chip designing, Arm.
• Homegrown chipmakers in China will now have more control of the market, thus more business and designs from Arm.

What's Rotten ??

Fisker (FSR) ??28.2%

• You know when your phone glitches and says your battery is at 0%, but it still works for an extra few seconds? Fisker is at 0%.
• Shares of this once nearly $30/sh stock closed at $0.09/sh yesterday. A WSJ report stuck a knife in their heart, saying the firm can’t get financing.
• Fisker had announced a potential deal with a fellow automaker, but the two are “no longer in negotiations.”

United Airlines (UAL) ??3.4%

• Thank whatever God you believe in that we have a federal government that, after weeks of deliberation, has decided that planes that fall apart aren’t safe.
• And according to the FAA, United is a top suspect. Scrutiny is ramping up more than passengers’ anxiety when stepping on their planes.
• It’s so bad the company even agrees, with their VP of safety saying the problems have “... rightfully caused us to pause and evaluate…”

Thought Banana ??

Using The Force

Sometimes, timing is everything.

And the timing of this explosion in AI capabilities, paired with that of our abilities to create cyborgs, seems way too close to the plot of… every single sci-fi movie of all time.

But thankfully, Dune 2 was just released, giving us a manual on how to survive the post-terminator world. At this point, I mean, f*ck it, let’s just see what happens.

What Happened?

Elon Musk’s 4th favorite child—I mean—*company, revealed its biggest news yet last week. After years of hearing all about Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, Neuralink finally took the spotlight.

Source

Neuralink’s popularity, measured by Google search data, reached an all-time high in January when Elon himself tweeted out that the first-ever human patient had finally received one of the company’s computer-brain interface implants.

That means Noland Arbaugh, a 29-year-old Hawaiian organ donor—I mean—a 29-year-old victim of a diving accident who is now paralyzed, is able to regain some of his independence after receiving the brain-chip implant surgery.

Essentially, what Neuralink does is install a piece of hardware the size of a 5 quarters stacked on top of each other into a patient’s brain that allows them to telepathically interact with a computer.

Yes, you read that right. It looks like this:

Source

Arbaugh spoke at a Neuralink company event last week, lauding the quality of life improvements he’s received since receiving the implant.

He invoked Star Wars when describing the experience, saying he felt as if he was “using the force” when playing games like chess, Mario Kart, and Civ 6.?

This isn’t the first time a computer-brain interface has been placed in a human patient. But it is probably the coolest, with Neuralink achieving its proximal goal of allowing patients to control computer mouses and keyboards with their thoughts.

Neuralink has said more broadly that the first use cases of the product will involve controlling “the intention to move.” Eventually, however, Musk has said it can help treat patients with everything from quadriplegia to Asperger.

The Takeaway?

Technology really has reached the execution point of every 1960s techno-apocalypse imagination. AI, rockets, brain-computer interfaces, the list goes on, and so far, it’s going pretty well.

The genie is out of the bottle, and in the coming years, we’ll get a sense of how our progress is going. Given that, literally, all three of the above major examples are being led by the same guy, let’s hope that ketamine does him well.?

Fingers crossed.?

?? The Big Question ??: What will the next major milestone be for Neuralink or its competitors? Should we be scared of brain-chip interfaces more than we are of AI? How will the world look if we’re all cyborgs by 2100?

Banana Brain Teaser ??

Previous ??

A technician makes a round trip to and from a certain service center by the same route. If the technician completes the drive to the center and then completes 10 percent of the drive from the center, what percent of the round trip has the technician completed?

Answer: 55%

Today ??

From 2000 to 2003, the number of employees at a certain company increased by a factor of 1/4. From 2003 to 2006, the number of employees at this company decreased by a factor of 1/3. If there were 100 employees at 2006, how many employees were there at the company in 2000?

?

Send your guesses to [email protected]

Wise Investor Says ??

“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.” — Elon Musk

How Would You Rate Today's Peel??

??All the bananas? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???Meh? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??Rotten AF

Happy Investing,

David, Vyom, Jasper & Patrick