2026-04-03 23:12:24
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To investors,
Stock investors are throwing a party as we end the week. Markets have come back from the dead and snapped a five-week losing streak. The S&P 500 climbed 3.4%, the Nasdaq surged 4.4%, and the Dow gained 3.0%. People are not going to complain about green candles after weeks of red.
On the surface, it looks like risk appetite is back and Q2 is off to a strong start. But underneath the rally, the latest labor market data tells a more cautious story. That gap between what markets are doing and what the data is saying is where investors need to focus in my opinion.
The March jobs report showed that nonfarm payrolls increased by 178,000. This rebound from February’s decline of 133,000 has people excited for obvious reasons and it doesn’t hurt that the unemployment rate edged down slightly to 4.3% either. At first glance, this looks fine. But zoom out and the trend is clear. Hiring is slowing. The gains are concentrated in a handful of sectors like healthcare, construction, and logistics, while broader momentum remains weak.
For example, the ADP report earlier in the week showed just 62,000 private-sector jobs added, reinforcing the idea that businesses are becoming more cautious.
What we are seeing now is a classic late-cycle labor market. Companies are not aggressively hiring, but they are not rushing to fire workers either. Job openings are trending lower and workers are quitting less often. The labor market is essentially in a standoff where employees stay put and companies resist hiring.
This “low hire, low fire” environment signals a slowdown in demand, but thankfull yit is not a collapse. Investors have to pay attention to the subtle shift because the labor market sits at the center of the economy. It drives consumer spending, corporate earnings, and ultimately the Fed’s monetary policy.
At the same time, this slowdown is happening at the same time as rising geopolitical risk. The bombing of Iran has pushed energy prices higher, which increases the odds of short-term inflation. So now the Fed has a problem on their hands.
Structural deflation is swallowing the economy. Short term inflationary pressures are showing up. The stock market is volatile. And the central bank has to figure out what to do. They can’t cut rates if inflation is going to spike, but they can’t let the labor market fall off a cliff either. This tension between slower growth and sticky inflation is one of the most important dynamics I am watching right now.
So this brings us back to stocks and why they are rallying in the face of this mixed data? The answer is simple….markets are forward-looking.
Investors are betting that the current softness will eventually lead to policy support. If the labor market weakens further, the Fed will be forced to ease. If geopolitical tensions stabilize, energy prices could come down and diminish inflationary pressures. On top of that, there is still a belief that corporate earnings, particularly in technology, can remain resilient.
Basically investors are calling the bluff of the doomsday predictors. They are voting with their dollars and clearly saying they believe things are going to turn around through the rest of the year.
This is what a “climb the wall of worry” market looks like. Stocks move higher even as the data becomes more fragile. You have to remember, we are not in a recession. But we are also not in a clean growth environment. We are in the messy middle, which is where narratives shift quickly and investors who can ignore the noise tend to do well over the long run.
This is where discipline becomes critical. Companies with strong balance sheets, durable demand, and real pricing power tend to outperform in this type of environment. These businesses can absorb higher costs and navigate slower growth better than their peers. At the same time, interest rates will remain a key variable.
If labor market weakness continues, rate cuts come back into focus, which tends to benefit long-duration assets like growth stocks. But if energy-driven inflation persists, the Fed may stay tighter for longer, which changes the situation materially.
I don’t want to ignore the energy situation, but it is important to put in context too. Higher oil prices are not just a macro headline. They directly impact inflation expectations, consumer behavior, and corporate margins. In many ways, energy exposure becomes both a risk and a hedge depending on how geopolitical events unfold. This adds another layer of complexity to portfolio construction.
So the one thing I feel very confident in is that volatility will remain elevated. This is not a smooth, trending market. Sharp pullbacks driven by fear can offer attractive entry points, while strong rallies can be used to take profits and manage risk. The key is to avoid reacting emotionally and instead focus on the underlying fundamentals of stocks, gold, bitcoin, and other assets.
The bottom line is that the labor market is screaming a specific message to whoever will listen. It is not strong, but it is not breaking either. The market, for now, is choosing to be optimistic, which I think is a no brainer decision.
But that optimism depends on hiring stabilizing, inflation staying under control, and geopolitical tensions easing in the coming weeks. If any of those variables shift in the wrong direction, then the current rally could quickly lose momentum.
You have to be a critical thinker going forward. The easy gains from broad exposure are behind us. The edge now comes from understanding second-order effects. Slower hiring today can mean easier policy tomorrow. Higher energy prices can delay that easing. No one has a crystal ball. But if you think hard enough, you can start to connect the dots.
Lots of people are nervous or confused right now. I am excited and see tons of opportunity all over the market. And my bet is that pessimists sound smart, but they rarely make money.
Let’s see what happens. Have a great end to your week. I will talk to everyone on Monday.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Matthew Sigel is the Head of Digital Asset Research at VanEck and portfolio manager of the NODE ETF.
In this conversation, we discuss why he’s turning more bullish on bitcoin, how AI and energy are driving new investment opportunities, and why bitcoin miners are emerging as key players in the AI boom. We also explore risks around AI Capex, geopolitics, and how he’s positioning across crypto and equities.
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Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic 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!)
Uphold - Uphold is the all-in-one platform to trade, earn, stake, and swap across 300+ assets with real-time proof-of-reserves and any-to-any conversions. Manage your entire crypto portfolio in one place at www.uphold.com
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
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🚨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.
2026-04-02 22:30:12
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To investors,
Most capital allocators were freaking out one year ago. The President of the United States levied tariffs on the world economy in early April 2025, which sent markets into a chaotic and turbulent period. Pessimists promised you sky-high inflation, empty shelves, and the next Great Depression.
None of that happened though.
Instead, the stock market went up 16%, home prices went down, and hundreds of billions of dollars poured into America via foreign investment. But most importantly, we never got the sky-high inflation, which objectively disproves the academic theory that tariffs are inflationary.
If you recall, I was one of the lone voices banging the drum that tariffs would be deflationary. Here is the piece that I wrote last April titled “Welcome to the Tariff Era — The Truth about US Tariffs.” If you haven’t read it, I highly suggest you do.
I argued in the piece that past tariffs had led to lower prices of goods domestically, rather than higher prices. I analyzed the 2018 tariffs and their impact on steel, washer machines, and solar panels. For all three products, prices were lower within 18 months than they had been pre-tariffs. I predicted we would see many of the same things start happening across the US economy.
Fast forward to today and we are now starting to see some of the results one year later. Natasha Khan just wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal explaining how Sharpie, the maker of your favorite markers, has figured out how to manufacture their products at a lower cost by re-shoring their manufacturing. The best part is they have been able to do this without having to fire employees or raise consumer prices.
Narrative violation.
But we are not just seeing lower prices in tariffed goods. Truflation reported their latest data for the start of April and it serves as a check against the current mainstream consensus. The company writes:
“The US inflation index went down quite significantly today from 1.77% to 1.26%.
Truflation CPI often shows larger monthly shifts on the 1st of each month because multiple data providers update their data. This time, the shift is downwards and unusually strong, highlighting multiple sticky deflationary trends across major categories, while gasoline prices continue to go up and have driven inflation higher over the past month.
Main drivers of this renewed deflationary wave:
Transport (-0.17%) - Used and New car price inflation is decreasing despite being offset by the Gasoline prices going up.
Food (-0.10%) - Food at home and Food away from home inflation is dropping.
Utilities (-0.10%) - Natural Gas prices are declining.
Housing (-0.09%) - Prices are dropping across all 3 sub-categories: Rented, Owned, and Other Lodgings.”
Now I know many people are skeptical of Truflation, but I continue to believe it is the single most valuable and accurate measurement of real-time inflation in the United States. They use over 14 million data points coming from over 40 independent data providers. Is it perfect? Probably not. But it is definitely more accurate than the CPI calculation from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Plus, Truflation has a 98% correlation to CPI, with CPI having a one-month lag. The reason this is important right now is because Truflation is telling us that the short-term impact from rising oil and gas prices is not going to be as pronounced on inflation as everyone is predicting.
Let me explain what I mean. Gas prices are now over $4 per gallon in the US. The media will rightfully call out the potential economic pain from this development, but there is some important nuance that you won’t read in the headlines.
You are going to read that every visit to the pump costs more, small businesses get squeezed, shipping prices rise, and that flows into everything from groceries to Amazon orders. This is all true and unfortunately these negative impacts hit lower-income households the hardest.
But $4 gas is not going to derail the US economy.
Most people are stuck in the 2008 mindset, but thankfully that is not the world we live in anymore. Cars are more fuel-efficient, EV adoption is growing, wages are higher in nominal terms, and the economy is less energy-intensive than it used to be.
On top of this, America is producing more oil than ever, so high oil prices incentivizes more investment and it creates more jobs domestically. These may not be exciting consolation prizes, but they are factual ramifications from high prices.
So what is likely to actually happen from these higher prices at the pump?
We probably don’t experience a big crash directly from high gas prices. Instead, we see a slow bleed across markets. Consumers pull back a little, sentiment weakens, and politicians start sweating. But $4 gas alone isn’t enough to break the economy.
The real danger is stacking negative economic trends. If high gas combines with sticky inflation, high rates, or a weakening job market then that’s when things could quickly unravel. If we don’t get the combination of factors, most of the headlines will be overdone.
So for right now, the biggest impact of high gas prices is not economic, but rather psychological. This brings us back to the recent Truflation data and the example of Sharpie. The structural setup for the US economy right now has deflation as a much bigger risk than inflation. The headlines are screaming about high oil prices, and the ensuing high gas prices, but the situation has not changed in the medium-to-long term.
Don’t get distracted. Tariffs, deportations, AI, and robotics are going to last longer than high oil prices. And those trends will matter much more for your portfolio over the next few years.
Have a great day. I will talk to everyone tomorrow.
Join myself and Chris Kline, Co-Founder of BitcoinIRA, for a FREE live webinar on how the right tax structure can change your financial life.
We’ll cover Bitcoin’s role in a modern portfolio, tax-advantaged account strategies, and what investors should be thinking about right now.
Learn about:
✅ How taxes quietly destroy wealth
✅ The accounts high earners actually use
✅ Live Q&A with Pomp
Don’t miss the opportunity to get your questions answered directly by myself and Chris Kline!
Matthew Sigel is the Head of Digital Asset Research at VanEck and portfolio manager of the NODE ETF.
In this conversation, we discuss why he’s turning more bullish on bitcoin, how AI and energy are driving new investment opportunities, and why bitcoin miners are emerging as key players in the AI boom. We also explore risks around AI Capex, geopolitics, and how he’s positioning across crypto and equities.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic 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!)
Uphold - Uphold is the all-in-one platform to trade, earn, stake, and swap across 300+ assets with real-time proof-of-reserves and any-to-any conversions. Manage your entire crypto portfolio in one place at www.uphold.com
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
🚨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.
2026-03-30 22:32:52
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To investors,
The word “SaaSpocalypse” has gone viral on Wall Street. Since September of last year, the S&P North American Technology Software Index has shed 32% of its value. That is a BIG drop for just a few months.
Salesforce is down more than 26%. Adobe has lost 20%. Dozens of mid-cap SaaS names have been cut in half. If you have been watching enterprise software stocks lately, you have been watching a sector get completely repriced. And if you have been an investor holding these stocks, your portfolio has not been fun to look at.
But what if everyone panics and gets ready to dump their positions at the bottom of the drawdown? What if the worst is behind us?
I don’t have a crystal ball, nor am I trying to call the bottom here, but here is what a contrarian would argue right now: the market has overreacted, the dominant narrative is factually broken, and investors who buy right now may be staring at some of the best entry points in a decade.
Before we talk about what could happen in the future, we have to unpack how we got here.
The pain arrived in two distinct waves. The first was macroeconomic. When the Federal Reserve raised interest rates at the fastest pace in history during 2022, long-duration assets got crushed.
There are very few assets that carry more duration than a fast-growing software company with cash flows priced ten years into the future. For example, the Bessemer Cloud Index saw its median public SaaS revenue multiple crater from an all-time peak of 18.4x forward revenue in September 2021 to roughly 6x by early 2026. That alone was a brutal reset.
Just that metric saw a 65% decrease by itself.
The second wave of pain was structural though. Frankly, this one was far more alarming to investors. The best way to understand it is that the rise of AI agents introduced what analysts now call “seat compression”: the idea that a single AI agent can perform the work of multiple employees, so enterprises need fewer software licenses.
Atlassian saw its stock plunge 35% after reporting its first-ever decline in enterprise seat counts. Whoops! Workday announced layoffs of 8.5% of its workforce and directly cited AI as one of the contributing factors. If those examples weren’t bad enough, the January 2026 CIO survey found IT budget growth was expected to be only 3.4%.
Most analysts argue that a big portion of budget growth was withheld because dollars are being rerouted toward more than $660 billion in planned hyperscaler AI infrastructure spending. That is obviously a big number. And when the market sees a big number attached to a scary prediction, they panic quickly.
That is exactly what happened earlier this year. A good example is when price-to-sales multiples compressed from 9x down to roughly 6x in a matter of weeks. For context, these are levels we have not seen since the mid-2010s.
But here is the thing, the sell-off in software stocks has not been uniform.
There is a bifurcation between AI infrastructure software and traditional application software. Palantir surged 135% in 2025 because they saw 121% year-over-year growth in their US commercial revenue. Palantir also gave fiscal 2026 revenue guidance of $7.2 billion, which was a number substantially higher than analyst expectations. Good companies, with real growth, can buck nearly any trend.
Other examples include Microsoft Azure crossing $50 billion in quarterly revenue and still growing 39% year-over-year. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure grew 84% in a single quarter and then told the market they had a $553 billion backlog. It is very hard to argue that a company is not going to be more valuable in the future when it claims to have half a trillion dollars of backlog.
Now let’s compare this to what happened on the other side of the market. A painful example has been Salesforce. They have lost more than a quarter of their market cap. Adobe’s forward price-to-earnings multiple has compressed to roughly 10x, even though the company is still growing revenue at 12% annually. This low of a multiple usually implies a business is in terminal decline.
CrowdStrike may be an even more confusing example. They are widely thought of as a structural winner in cybersecurity, yet they trade 20% below their five-year average price-to-sales multiple despite a dominant market position that grows more critical with every AI deployment. My big takeaway from these examples is that the market is treating all non-infrastructure software as damaged goods. This is where a contrarian would argue the market is making a mistake.
So what is going on here?
The prevailing bear thesis assumes that AI will displace SaaS. The pessimists believe that companies, particularly large enterprises, will stop paying for software subscriptions as AI agents absorb the workload. Could that be true? Sure. Is it the obvious conclusion from the current facts? Absolutely not.
A contrarian would argue this logic has a fatal flaw because the incumbents are not standing still. They are building the AI layer themselves, including their advantageous use of two decades of proprietary enterprise data, customer relationships, and distribution that no startup can replicate overnight.
Basically, incumbents only get disrupted if they don’t disrupt themselves first.
Let’s go back to Salesforce. Their Agentforce AI agent platform hit $800 million in annual recurring revenue in fiscal 2026, which they report is up 169% year-over-year. That platform is now shifting to a consumption-based, outcome-driven pricing model. If it works and continues to scale, it will be hard for a startup to compete with Salesforce’s distribution advantages.
Another one to pay attention to is ServiceNow’s generative AI suite (Now Assist). They reported crossing $600 million in annual contract value and are on pace for $1 billion by year-end. It is hard to ignore $1 billion in contract value.
Then let’s not forget Microsoft, the big dog of software. They launched a new M365 enterprise tier priced at $99 per user per month, which is 65% above its prior top-tier plan, with the hopes of capturing AI value directly through their existing install base.
So the bears may be loud right now, but these examples are not threats to the SaaS business model. Instead, they are the SaaS business model evolving into something more powerful and benefitting directly from the AI tech trend.
Another important point here is that many of these companies are switching from an individual license revenue model to a consumption-based pricing model. The idea is to charge a customer by tasks completed or outcome delivered, rather than by user seat. This business model evolution combined with the fact that enterprise software spending is projected to grow 15% this year, makes it more difficult for the people predicting the demise of software stocks.
The companies best positioned to capture this increased spend are the ones with the enterprise relationships, compliance infrastructure, and workflow integration that incumbents already own. Bain & Company’s own research confirms that customers overwhelmingly prefer to buy AI-enabled solutions from their existing vendors. This is common sense. Companies will buy from people they know and brands they trust, as long as the technology and cost are competitive.
So what has to happen for the bears to be wrong and software stock investors to be happy again?
This is where things get a little complicated. There is no magic bullet. Instead, investors are going to need a few things to go right. First, AI monetization must cross a credibility threshold. Confidence in Salesforce returns if Agentforce revenue surges north of $1 billion ARR. ServiceNow needs Now Assist to clear $1 billion in ACV. Microsoft needs to demonstrate that Copilot is lifting average revenue per user in a sustained, measurable way. Those data points, which could arrive as early as the second half of this year, will shift the market narrative from “AI is disrupting SaaS” to “SaaS is monetizing AI.”
The second thing that needs to happen is various enterprise IT budget data sources must confirm net expansion in software spend despite seat compression. This would be the most concrete way to disprove the bear thesis.
Lastly, stability in the macro environment is going to matter. If interest rates go up, that is going to cause more pain. But if rates stay flat, or even continuing being cut, then I would expect some of the multiple-compression headwinds to dissipate. This would then allow a true re-rating upwards to begin.
So if the bears are wrong on these software stocks, how much money could an investor potentially make going forward?
The good news is that valuation multiples across popular, quality software names is the most compelling it has been in years. Microsoft trades at roughly 24x forward earnings with 14% annualized earnings growth expected. The median Wall Street price target is $600, which is about 50% higher than the current share price.
Cloudflare has a similar situation. They have a median analyst target of $245, which would be about 40% higher from current prices. Snowflake, who is still growing revenue 29% year-over-year, trades at 13x price-to-sales, yet the consensus target implies 43% upside. These are not small numbers and I am not even talking about the highest analyst targets.
But if you really want asymmetry, a contrarian would argue Adobe is perhaps the most asymmetric setup. They currently trade around 10x forward earnings with double-digit revenue and earnings growth. As mentioned, the market is pricing structural decline into a company that is still compounding. If Adobe reverted to a normalized 25x multiple, that would imply approximately 150% upside before accounting for any earnings growth.
There is example after example across the public markets of these situations. Analysts at multiple firms are projecting 40–50% upside merely from multiple expansion alone for quality software names that execute on AI monetization. That is before you layer in the earnings growth trajectory that would likely follow from a successful embracing of the new technology.
Remember, the SaaSpocalypse is so overdone that the narrative assumes the industry is being disrupted into irrelevance. The data is telling a very different story though. Maybe the SaaS companies aren’t being disrupted from the outside, but they are evolving internally into something more valuable, with higher revenue per customer, lower marginal delivery costs, and a total addressable market that is tripling over the next four years.
If that is the case, the entry price for these companies has been put on a flash sale thanks to investor fear in recent weeks. The big question is whether the fear will have been warranted in hindsight.
I hope all of you have a great start to your week. I will talk to everyone next time.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Join myself and Chris Kline, Co-Founder of BitcoinIRA, for a FREE live webinar on how the right tax structure can change your financial life.
We’ll cover Bitcoin’s role in a modern portfolio, tax-advantaged account strategies, and what investors should be thinking about right now.
Learn about:
✅ How taxes quietly destroy wealth
✅ The accounts high earners actually use
✅ Live Q&A with Pomp
Don’t miss the opportunity to get your questions answered directly by myself and Chris Kline!
Jordi Visser is a veteran macro investor with 30+ years of experience and the author of the VisserLabs Substack.
In this conversation, we discuss rising inflation, higher oil prices, and why he believes markets are entering a new regime driven by supply shocks and geopolitical risk. We also explore asset rotation into commodities, risks in private credit, and bitcoin’s growing role as liquidity and capital flows shift globally.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic 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!)
Uphold - Uphold is the all-in-one platform to trade, earn, stake, and swap across 300+ assets with real-time proof-of-reserves and any-to-any conversions. Manage your entire crypto portfolio in one place at www.uphold.com
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
🚨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.
2026-03-27 22:17:47
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Use code POMP and receive $1,000 off the cost of a life-changing membership with Fountain Life when you schedule a call.
To investors,
For most of its early life, Bitcoin was easy to dismiss as a side-show that traded in its own little corner of the financial universe. It moved when it wanted to, crashed when it felt like it, and paid no attention to what the S&P 500, Treasury bonds, oil, or gold were doing. That uncorrelated reputation was a big part of Bitcoin’s appeal to early adopters. Then the world changed and Bitcoin seems to have changed with it.
From 2015 through 2019, Bitcoin’s correlations with every major asset class hovered close to zero. Against the S&P 500, it barely registered at 0.03 to 0.05. Against bonds, oil, and gold, the picture was equally flat. This was Bitcoin in its purest “digital gold” phase, a volatile niche asset largely owned by retail speculators and idealists who weren’t plugged into broader market cycles. When equity markets rallied or sold off, Bitcoin shrugged. The asset existed in a world of its own.
Frankly, it was awesome because bitcoin was as independent as a financial asset can be. That independence wasn’t just a quirk. It made Bitcoin genuinely useful from a portfolio theory standpoint. An asset that moves independently of everything else is valuable precisely because it can reduce overall portfolio risk, regardless of whether it goes up or down. During this period, the correlation argument for holding Bitcoin was actually quite compelling.
The pandemic is where the story gets interesting. COVID-19 broke the correlation spell. When markets crashed in March 2020, Bitcoin got caught in the same liquidation wave that swept through equities, commodities, and credit. Investors needed cash, so they sold everything that was attached to a liquid market. Bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P 500 jumped from near zero to about 0.47 almost overnight.
What followed was arguably more telling. As central banks flooded the system with liquidity and markets recovered, Bitcoin exploded higher. But this seismic move happened in lockstep with the tech-heavy Nasdaq and risk-on equities. The correlation with SPY kept climbing and eventually reached 0.55 to 0.65 between 2021 and 2022.
Bitcoin essentially got absorbed into the macro trade. It was no longer a separate asset class because it evolved into a high-beta version of risk-on sentiment. A new type of investor was holding the asset at this point, which meant that the asset traded much differently.
The approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 was a watershed moment. Bitcoiners and Wall Street institutions were literally celebrating at the achievement of this previously unthinkable milestone. But the Bitcoin bulls should have been careful what they wished for.
Institutional capital flooded in and with it came traditional Wall Street thinking, which meant the differentiation in trading behavior between various assets started to evaporate. Portfolio managers who run models, allocate across asset classes, and rebalance mechanically now owned Bitcoin. That meant when they sold equities, they often sold Bitcoin too. The idealists had essentially lost ground to the mercenary hedge funds.
Today the BTC-SPY correlation sits around 0.49, which is similar to where it ended 2025. Rolling short-term correlations have spiked as high as 0.88 during volatile stretches. Regardless of what your favorite Bitcoin believer tells you, the digital currency is trading like a true risk asset. That’s important for anyone who bought it believing it would zig when stocks zagged. The opposite has happened and correlations only grew stronger.
On the other hand, bonds and oil tell a boring story.
The bonds story is short because there isn’t much of one. We can use TLT as the example. Bitcoin’s correlation with long-duration Treasury bonds has been close to zero throughout its history, sitting at roughly -0.01 today. Bitcoin is a risk-on asset and bonds are risk-off, but the relationship is too inconsistent and too weak to use strategically.
Oil has followed a similar trajectory. Binance Research’s 10-year study found no significant long-term relationship between Bitcoin and crude prices. Short-term spikes occur, but they snap back. The long-run correlation remains around 0.15, which is weak enough to be effectively meaningless.
The gold relationship is where things have gotten genuinely strange in 2026. Through most of its history, Bitcoin carried a small positive correlation with gold, typically between 0.10 and 0.35. The idea was these two assets reflected shared sensitivity to dollar weakness and inflation fears. That narrative fueled years of “digital gold” marketing. But just look at this chart:
Bitcoin’s correlation with gold has fallen apart. Gold had surged higher as a geopolitical safe haven last year, while Bitcoin sold off. This meant the two assets were moving in almost opposite directions. This marked one of the only times in history these two store-of-value assets had a negative correlation.
The trend has only continued this year. The BTC-gold correlation is -0.69 right now, which is the sharpest divergence on record. The only difference is that since the February 28th bombing of Iran, gold has been selling off and bitcoin has been appreciating in price. Even though these assets switched their direction of travel, the negative correlation still persists.
So what can we take away from this data?
First, Bitcoin has grown up and been adopted by larger pools of capital. This newfound investor base doesn’t discriminate. They have pulled Bitcoin into the risk-on / risk-off regime they are used to navigating. Bitcoin is simply along for the ride now.
Bitcoin has become more integrated with the financial system. It is more responsive to macro conditions. And unfortunately, Bitcoin is considerably less useful as a diversifier. Whether that’s a feature or a bug depends entirely on what you wanted it to be.
There will always be hardcore Bitcoin believers that will never sell the asset, regardless of what happens in the market. But I am more convinced every day that a lot of the Bitcoin selling from OGs last year was driven by people realizing the renegade asset they once bet their net worth on is gone. What is left is a slightly more volatile digital currency that hopes to continue pulling in more capital in the coming years.
Have a great end to your week. I will talk to everyone on Monday.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
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Mike Selig is the 16th Chairman of the CFTC and a leading voice on the future of financial market regulation in an era defined by crypto, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets.
In this conversation, we discuss how regulators are balancing innovation with investor protection, the evolving relationship between the SEC and CFTC, and why emerging technologies are reshaping how risk is taken and managed across global markets. We also explore the rise of decentralized finance, AI-driven trading, and new policy initiatives aimed at keeping the United States competitive in the next generation of financial infrastructure.
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Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic 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!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
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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.
2026-03-25 21:43:08
This Thursday @ 3pm ET, I’m sitting down with Abra CEO and Founder Bill Barhydt and the Head of Asset Management Marissa Kim on a webinar to share how we’re each thinking about crypto portfolio construction, custody, leverage, and positioning right now.
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To investors,
Rachel Ensign of The Wall Street Journal recently published an article titled “They’re Rich but Not Famous—and They’re Suddenly Everywhere.” This one stopped me in my tracks and made me think more critically about what is happening in finance right now.
The article wasn’t about billionaires or hedge funds. It was about the “stealth rich.” These are Americans worth tens or hundreds of millions who built wealth the unglamorous way: owning businesses, accumulating assets, and letting compounding do the work.
Most readers will walk away thinking this is an interesting anecdote or a one-off edge case. It’s not. It’s a signal of the structural shift that is underway. And the consensus view is still underestimating how durable it is.
More Americans are becoming wealthy, at younger ages, than at any point in history. Not because of speculation. Not because of a bubble. But because multiple long-term forces are compounding at the same time.
Let’s start with public markets.
The S&P 500 has quietly become one of the most reliable wealth creation systems ever built. Passive flows, tax-advantaged accounts, and global demand for US assets have created a persistent bid. Investors keep waiting for mean reversion. What they’re missing is that the structure of the market has changed.
I don’t think the “passive investing” trend is a bubble. It feels like much more of a regime shift. As long as capital continues to flow automatically into equities, valuations can remain structurally higher than historical averages. The “overvaluation” argument has been right in theory and wrong in practice for over a decade.
Private markets are even more misunderstood.
Middle-market businesses are no longer local, capital-constrained operations. They are global, tech-enabled cash flow machines. Software has compressed costs. Distribution has expanded. Capital is abundant, which means contrary to popular belief: the golden age of small and midsize business ownership is happening right now.
The nostalgia for “old school entrepreneurship” misses the point. Today’s operators have better tools, higher margins, and more exit liquidity than any prior generation. And it isn’t just small businesses either. Real estate tells a similar story.
Yes, affordability is stretched. Yes, rates are higher. But supply remains constrained, and ownership is increasingly concentrated among higher-income households. Rather than view these inputs as a sign that real estate is broken, I think a better way to view the market is that real estate has become a luxury asset. This transition to luxury asset keeps a structural floor under prices, even if transaction volumes slow.
Next, we can look to technology. This is a true force multiplier. Artificial intelligence, software, and digital platforms create asymmetric outcomes. Small advantages scale globally with near-zero marginal cost. That dynamic didn’t exist 30 years ago, so maybe inequality is not a bug of the system, but instead it is a feature of scalable technology.
I am not here to argue this is a good thing. Rather I am just observing what appears to be happening across the country. And as long as the U.S. leads in innovation, the largest financial outcomes will continue to concentrate here.
Now layer in monetary policy. The consensus view is that the era of easy money is over. But that misses the bigger picture in my opinion. Even “tight” policy today is structurally easier than historical norms when measured against debt levels and political incentives. The system simply cannot tolerate prolonged tightness. Liquidity will return and it won’t be as temporary stimulus, instead it will be a recurring necessity.
Human capital has also shifted. More people are working in high-productivity industries. They earn more, save more, and invest earlier. This means the investor class is expanding faster than people realize. These investors have more money and are more sophisticated than prior generations. This is not “dumb money.” It is systematic, persistent capital allocation.
But we can’t focus on what is happening exclusively inside the United States. Globalization is still happening, even if the political headlines try to convince you otherwise. American companies still access global demand, global labor, and global capital. De-globalization is overstated, which can be seen by the evolution of economic integration, rather than a true reversing of the trend. And capital continues to flow toward the most productive systems, which are largely US-based or US-centric.
This brings us to demographics. This is one trend that every academic or economists love to point to as a headwind. But that ignores the asset side of the equation. The largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history will act as an accelerant for asset prices. Capital from boomers is not going to disappear. It will get redeployed and most likely redeployed into much more aggressive portfolio allocations by the younger generation.
All of this leads to a conclusion most investors are still uncomfortable with:
Wealth is compounding faster than the mainstream narrative acknowledges.
And wealth doesn’t sit still. It hunts returns. US households now hold a greater share of their net worth in equities than in real estate. That would have been unfathomable just a few decades ago. Incremental capital flows into stocks, private businesses, venture, crypto, and alternatives. That newfound, persistent demand supports higher valuations.
It also creates reflexivity. Rising asset prices increase wealth. That wealth drives spending and investment. Spending supports earnings. Earnings support asset prices.
I have been yelling from the rooftop to “study reflexivity” for years now. This is as good a time as any to get up to speed on how it works. What many call a “bubble” is actually a feedback system. And those systems tend to persist longer than expected.
The only true way that something breaks is if the underlying flows are disrupted and I just don’t see that scenario at the moment. You have to remember that capital is also moving faster. Liquidity events (whether in public equities, private markets, or new technological winners) are recycled across asset classes at increasing speed.
Velocity of capital matters as much as quantity. And the velocity across markets is accelerating. Of course, there is no free lunch. There are real risks that must be acknowledged too. Concentration is higher and correlations rise in stress environments. A drawdown would transmit quickly through household balance sheets.
But even here, investors may be thinking about it incorrectly. Drawdowns are becoming shorter and more aggressively bought because the capital base behind them is larger and more responsive. The result is a market structure where downside exists, but is increasingly met with enthusiastic capital deployment from a decentralized army of investors across markets.
Put it all together and the picture becomes clear: We are in a regime defined by abundant capital, expanding ownership, and scalable technology.
That is not a normal environment. I like to say “this ain’t your grandpa’s market.” It is a structurally bullish one. The United States did not just grow its economy. It expanded the number of people who own meaningful financial assets and the country gave them the tools to keep compounding.
That ownership class is growing and it is becoming the dominant force in markets.
America didn’t announce it got rich. The wealth accumulation by many Americans was quiet and intentional. But now you hear all the bears out in full force trying to convince you that things have gone too far. Valuations are too high. The Fed has to take the punch bowl away at the party. The boomers got wealthy off asset inflation, so now they want to pull the ladder up behind them.
It is not going to happen. The more uncomfortable possibility is that we are still early in a generational bull market. The optimists are right. Stocks are going up forever. The dollar is going to lose value forever. And those holding cash are going to get smoked, while those pouring capital into legitimate financial assets will see their net worths grow larger, just like their grandparents were able to experience.
Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone next time.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Johann Kerbrat is the SVP and General Manager of Crypto and International at Robinhood, where he leads the company’s expansion across digital assets and global markets.
In this conversation, we discuss the rise of 24/7 trading, evolving retail investor behavior, and Robinhood’s push into areas like tokenization, prediction markets, and institutional crypto services. We also explore how artificial intelligence is shaping financial products and why improving access and education for everyday investors remains a key focus for the future.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic 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!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
🚨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.
2026-03-23 21:43:06
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To investors,
Gold, bonds, and bitcoin tell the story of financial markets right now. We recently saw gold crash down to $4,100 per ounce, bonds continue pushing higher, and bitcoin is up around 8% since the start of the war.
So why is all of this happening? What are these three assets telling us about what is likely to come next?
We can start with bonds. Trillions of dollars have poured into US Treasuries over the years. Investors find the bonds attractive due to their deep liquidity, near zero credit risk, predictable income, and tax advantages at the state and local level. Normally during times of uncertainty, Treasury prices appreciate and yields are pressured lower due to increased demand.
That demand comes from investors seeking refuge from large potential losses in stocks and corporate bonds. The US government is largely seen as the ultimate backstop in financial markets, so the government’s bonds are deemed the least risky thing to own.
But we have seen the opposite happen during the Iran conflict. Yields are up and Treasuries are down. This is because oil prices have spiked hard, which introduces classic stagflation risk. That stagflation risk deters the Fed from cutting interest rates and it reignites inflation fears. Those inflation fears change the calculus for investors and prevent them from driving yields down and Treasuries up.
Treasuries have actually been one of the worst-performing major assets since February 28th, which is the exact opposite of the usual playbook.
But what if this weird reaction in the bond market was met with a once-in-a-lifetime threat for participating? What if you could have a missile shot at you for buying Treasuries?
This isn’t a hypothetical situation. Last night, the Speaker of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Parliament put out an unhinged tweet that read:
“Alongside military bases, those financial entities that finance the US military budget are legitimate targets. US treasury bonds are soaked in Iranians’ blood. Purchase them, and you purchase a strike on your HQ and assets.
We monitor your portfolios. This is your final notice.”
How serious is this threat? I have no idea. But the idea that financial institutions could potentially become targets of a country that the United States is actively engaged in kinetic combat with is unsettling. Will this proclamation deter people from buying Treasuries? Probably not. But weirder things have happened in the past.
This latest threat is just another example of Iran’s strategy to deal with the current conflict. They have been launching missiles and drones into American military bases, along with energy infrastructure of various neighboring countries in the Middle East. They have shut down the Strait of Hormuz and attacked multiple ships that tried to navigate the perilous waters. And this weekend the largest state sponsor of terrorism threatened to cut the sub-sea internet cables in the Strait.
This strategy reminds me of an old Reddit post that explains why you never want to fight an insane person: “Never fight or argue with an unpredictable, mentally unstable, or irrational person, as they often lack restraint, use “dirty” tactics, and will drag you down to their level, resulting in a loss regardless of the outcome. They pose a higher danger because they are unpredictable and lack fear.”
I am hosting a webinar with Abra this Thursday @ 3pm ET where we will break down everything investors need to know about custody, leverage, and portfolio positioning in today’s evolving crypto market.
Abra’s CEO Bill Barhydt and Managing Director Marissa Kim will join me to discuss how serious investors are thinking about risk, opportunity, and long-term strategy during this current market cycle.
If you are an investor looking to better understand how to structure your crypto portfolio and navigate macro uncertainty, this webinar is for you.
This lack of predictability, coupled with a desire to maximize damage inflicted, has put the United States in an unusual situation. We can stop bombing the country and claim victory at any point. There is no promise that Iran would stop attacking their neighbors, stop funding terrorism globally, or cease their pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
During times of uncertainty like this, we would expect to see gold’s price appreciate rapidly. Investors tend to seek safe-haven assets and they want to insulate themselves from incoming currency debasement needed to fund a war. But that is not what has happened in this conflict.
Gold has been plummeting and the precious metal is now down about 13% since the start of the war. Some people will claim the sell-off is due to potential Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, but I don’t think that is correct. I am more convinced that a liquidity crisis is underway for people, organizations, and countries in the Eastern world.
These are the same groups that were aggressively buying gold in the last two years. So against the backdrop of a strengthening dollar, these gold holders are likely looking for liquidity and selling gold is an easy way to raise cash.
This brings us to bitcoin. The digital currency has been the unsung hero of the conflict. Ash Crypto shows that “Bitcoin is up 34% against gold since the US-Iran war started 23 days ago.”
There are multiple drivers of this outperformance, but I truly believe the world is recognizing bitcoin’s attractive attributes as a non-sovereign, decentralized asset that can be moved anywhere in the world within seconds. A store of value that doesn’t require an airplane to move it is quite attractive in the world we are headed towards.
So until the war ends, my expectation is oil goes higher, bonds and gold stay under constant pressure, and bitcoin outperforms other store of value assets. This may not be what investors expected going into the conflict, but here we are. Your academic textbook can’t change reality.
Remember, we know financial markets will rip higher immediately if the Iran war comes to an end. We know this because President Trump told reporters late on Friday that America was close to winding down the war. Stocks went green almost immediately in after-hours trading.
So investors are all playing a game of chicken right now. How much pain are we willing to withstand on the hopes that Trump and his administration are close to a cease-fire? We know it will be valuable to be invested when the pivot comes, but it is nearly impossible to get the timing right. This means you have to eat the drawdown in your portfolio or you have to be out of the market and risk missing the fast recovery.
Every investor has a different strategy. But one thing is clear…financial assets are responding to bombs in the Middle East, oil prices domestically, and what the man in the White House tweets. What a time to be alive.
Hope everyone has a great start to their week. I will talk to you next time.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Jordi Visser is a veteran macro investor with 30+ years of experience and the author of the VisserLabs Substack.
In this conversation, we discuss rising geopolitical tensions, higher oil prices, and growing risks in private credit and global markets. We also explore bitcoin’s resilience, how AI is disrupting software and jobs, and why Jordy believes commodities, liquidity, and volatility will shape the next major investment cycle.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic 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!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
🚨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.