Stocks opened this morning as if Wall Street had misplaced its car keys and its sense of direction simultaneously. Stocks sagged. Gold slid. Bitcoin tripped over the edge of the rug, fell, and pretended it meant to do that.
Tomorrow, Nvidia reports earnings. The delayed September jobs report will be released on Thursday. For better or worse, these two numbers will pack enough psychological weight to make even the calmest fund manager twitch.
Another senior designer — this one responsible for the iPhone Air concept — has left Apple for an AI startup, continuing the post – Jony Ive brain drain. But Apple had a glimmer of good news: the iPhone 17 helped boost China sales by 37% last month.
And amid the gloom, Alphabet floated like a smug balloon because Warren Buffett — who normally treats tech stocks like suspicious shellfish — revealed he’d taken a position. The Oracle of Omaha whispered “Google,” and the market sat up straighter.
One wonders what note Buffet’s swan song will end on …
Until Nvidia drops a beat tomorrow, though, most traders will be nursing their coffee like it’s a tranquilizer and staring at their stock screens.
The AI Boom That’s Shrinking Payrolls
On the surface, Silicon Valley earnings are the picture of health. Growth is strong, AI spending is roaring, GPUs are flying off trucks before the engines stop running.
On paper, this looks like Trump’s golden age is upon us.
But in the real world — where people need jobs and paychecks — tech companies have quietly cut 141,000 workers this year. California, once the land of digital Camelot, has lost nearly one-fifth of its tech workforce in two years.
To the conventional thinker, this isn’t a mystery. It’s what productivity spurts always do. AI is turning average workers into super-powered ones, just as spreadsheets did in the ‘80s and robotics did in manufacturing. Firms don’t need twenty heads when ten augmented ones will do.
Digging a little deeper, we suspect the “productivity” gains will be realized about as much as they were in the dotcom era – the last time the financial media tried to find new metaphors for how exceptional the American worker is with tech tools in his hands. [Reality alert: nothing’s ever that easy.]
Still, economist Ezra Karger thinks 18% of U.S. work hours will be AI-assisted by 2030.
Niall Ferguson argues that AI investments now account for up to two-fifths of recent GDP growth. And Noah Smith suggests AI may be the only thing keeping the U.S. out of a tariff-induced recession.
Is it a bubble? Maybe. But as Reason’s Tyler Cowen points out, bubbles built your world. They gave us railroads, radio, and the internet. If there weren’t irrational optimists, you’d still be lighting your house with whale fat.
But can you, the individual investor, actually plan your retirement around investments in AI? Like early electrification, AI is dimly understood, unevenly distributed, and confusing enough to terrify half the population while making the other half giddy.
Dirty Jobs, Clean Hands
White-collar hiring is, in fact, slowing. Engel’s Pause is taking hold of the jobs picture.
In the meantime, everyday Americans are rediscovering an ancient truth: there is wisdom in wearing steel-toed boots.
Jobs that struggle to attract bodies in boom times are now seeing stampedes of applicants.
– Georgia’s Department of Corrections: applications up 40%.
– The U.S. military: reached 2025 recruiting goals early.
– Waste management staffing: applications up 50%.
For now, economists call this “labor market tightness.” Anyone who has ever scrubbed a grease trap knows it by another name: fear.
The job-hopping festival of 2021–2022 is dead. Companies want experience, not enthusiasm. Employers are hiring nurses, electricians, and welders — while college seniors contemplate the shrinking space between “entry level” and “already obsolete.”
The reopening of the government means we’ll see September labor data on Thursday, but October and November will have to wait. As will the Fed.
For now, it’s clear: the K-shaped employment is already in view — steady for skilled workers… everyone else? Not so much. We suspect the bubble on Wall Street is going to have to fizzle before AI benefits actually bear fruit.
Bezos, Back in the Pilot Seat
Jeff Bezos, unable to resist the itch of creation, has quietly stepped back into the CEO role — this time as co-leader of Project Prometheus, a $6.2 billion AI venture cloaked in mystery and ambition.
Prometheus wants to build “world models” — AI systems that learn from spatial data, video, and physical interactions. Not chatbots. Not text parrots. Machines that understand the world’s geometry, physics, and constraints.
The company has approximately 100 employees and a substantial amount of cash. Bezos sees applications in manufacturing, robotics, and aerospace — essentially, the technological scaffold Blue Origin will climb as it expands.
Bitcoin Trips, Stands, Wobbles
For the first time since the April post-Liberation Day selloff, Bitcoin dipped under $90,000 last night.
The now 30% correction since early-October has been sending BTC ETF investors into their first genuine spiritual crisis.
By afternoon, the coin had managed a shaky recovery — not enough to reassure JPMorgan’s Daniel Pinto, who warned that any real downturn in AI stocks would ripple through the crypto market. Correlation hasn’t just increased; it’s practically holding hands.
Whales, as we pointed out this morning, are more than happy to scoop up more BTC at a discount.
We’ll take up the issue of bitcoin and crypto correlation to the AI stock bubble on Thursday, November 20, at 2pm EST on Grey Swan Live! with Ian King and Mark Jeftovic.
We’ll also be digging into the regulatory environment evolving around our Dollar 2.0 investment thesis. (See more details below).
Tariff Rebate Checks: A Fantasy in Several Acts
Trump’s proposed $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks are stuck in the political equivalent of airport purgatory.
Secretary Scott Bessent warns that Congress has to approve it.
Rep. Zinke says the national debt is already “a full bus.” Sen. Katie Britt says Americans would love the money. Josh Hawley wants a smaller $600 version. Steve Scalise suggests paying down the deficit instead.
Meanwhile, new numbers reveal that during the shutdown, the U.S. federal debt surged $620 billion during the 43-day government shutdown. This marks a $14.5 billion increase per day, to a record $38.1 trillion.
Diplomatic Theater: MBS in Washington
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrives in Washington today, his first visit since the Khashoggi killing froze relations. A delicate dance awaits.
Trump wants movement on the Saudis’ promised $600 billion U.S. investment.
Mo bin Salman wants American security guarantees.
If the deal goes down, the news may be enough to distract the media from its obsession with the Epstein files… for about 20 seconds.
Fewer Foreign Students, More Questions
International enrollment for new students in U.S. universities is down 17% this fall. Graduate programs especially are hemorrhaging applicants.
Visa restrictions, ideological battles, and shifting global sentiment all play a part.
Yet institutions still want foreign students: they pay full tuition, bring diverse perspectives, and fund university budgets that otherwise resemble sinking ships.
Trump now calls foreign enrollment “good business.” But the trend remains downward, and American universities aren’t built to shrink gracefully.
This Day in Market & Madness
We only noticed this today: On November 15, 1867, the first stock ticker tape machine began clattering in New York — spitting out price data in real time, ending the era of messenger boys relaying information on horseback.
Over the next century, the ticker helped democratize the markets. In our Anatomy of A Stock Market Bubble report, we trace the lineage from the first trading on Wall Street through boom and bust to the present day.
Each “innovation” – mutual funds, 401(k)s, IRAs, and ETFs – draws an ever larger pool of unwitting speculators into the arms of traders and brokers.
A culture of mass participation in markets, encompassing newsletters, day traders and investment clubs, exists to help those eagerly lured by the siren’s song to the Scylla and Charybdis of stock market riches.
On this day, three days later, November 18, in 1978, the mass cult suicide took place at Jonestown, Guyana. A charismatic leader convinced 909 men, women, and children, to drink poison in the jungle.
One event promises untold riches. The other is a cautionary tale warning what happens when people surrender their skepticism to a leader with absolute confidence and terrible ideas.
Sardonic thought for the day: Financial bubbles and cults have more in common than polite society cares to admit.
~Addison
P.S.: We’ll have more thoughts on what’s going on with bitcoin and “Dollar 2.0” this week on Grey Swan Live! with Mark Jeftovic and Ian King.
Since the October 21st Payments Innovation Conference hosted by the Fed, the regulatory environment has continued apace, despite the government shutdown, the SEC, IRS and CFTC have all updated guidance.
A sound regulatory environment is good for the digital asset space. The Treasury under the Trump administration is counting on stablecoins to mature enough that the U.S. dollar preserves its reserve currency status in the burgeoning digital economy.
Join us on Thursday as we get into the weeds a little and identify opportunities opening up quickly.
And on Friday, join us for a special presentation with Prime Financial Services on how you can best structure your wealth to minimize taxes – which in turn helps you maximize your returns.
If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.
