Blain’s Morning Porridge 25th Nov 2025 – Markets dancing hard ahead of the hangover
“Beware markets full of absolute fabrications presented as irrefutable truths.”
Markets drunk on expectations and hype will believe what they want to believe – but as bubbles pop and truths are exposed, then sentiment can shift suddenly. Yesterday’s market darlings become today’s scams. Who knew? Relax. The sun will come up tomorrow. Enjoy the show.
Sometimes you just have to laugh at the narratives markets are prepared to believe. Bubbles are a feature of markets, and they all pop eventually. Don’t panic and don’t lose heart – your favourite bubble might pop today, but a new one will emerge to lose your shirt on tomorrow. It’s not the end of the world – unless you’re 6 times levered on Strategy…. which is the equivalent of Thunder White Cider and a couple of tabs at a wild party, perhaps?
Some folk are gamblers. Some folk are realists. Which are you today? What will your head feel like when the party stops?
We are in now deep into the end game on a number of unstainable market narratives. That means the commentariat is full wildly speculative stories – that’s what happens when bubbles are popping and folk are trying to turn back the irresistible force of reality. Check out your news feeds, socials and sub-stacks and they will be full of posts seeking to re-validate the six or seven improbable things and narratives they believed in before breakfast.
The desperation to believe, and have their speculative investment hunches validated, means the market is full of absolute fabrications presented as irrefutable truths. I love it – they make me laugh. The tide is going out on a large number of speculative narratives. All the noise out there in the market is folk trying to support, reinforce, and justify positions that are being swept out at speed.
You can’t help but giggle at just how silly some of it is. But it’s the end of the froth, not the end of the World. Sit back and enjoy the show.
The funny side is crypto.
Crypto is one of my guilty pleasures. I enjoy reading the crypto press and the absolute twaddle presented as informed commentary about the importance of tokens, stablecoins, halvings and other such irrelevant beasts. The chartist analysis of crypto-market strength in terms of moving averages, RSI and other nonsense – well, frankly you’d get more sense from giving an infinite number of Monkeys their own crypto wallets.
This morning the Crypto-bubble is full of stories about JP Morgan and the “evilest” banker alive, its’ boss Jamie Dimon. The World’s no 1 bank has apparently taken out a massive short in Michael Saylor’s Strategy. How very dare they… Being short Strategy wasn’t rocket science – MSTR’ capital stack shenanigans made it such an obvious Ponzi, sustained on the back of a tidal wave of hype.
Now the crypto shills are calling for a boycott of JP Morgan, citing examples of major crypto players pulling their business from the bank. Really? Do you think JP Morgan wants their accounts or cares? The narrative the current crypto tumble is all JP Morgan’s doing will give the survivors of the coming Crypto Ice-Age something to rant about as they huddle in their caves after Bitcon drops to the square root of its actual value – which will be zip if the Nakamoto cult ever wake up.
However, there will be genuine market pain and economic consequences from a major shake up and shift in real-world stock market valuations. Stock market strength is a major indicator of economic confidence and resilience.
It does worry me the current bounce in Tech stocks comes entirely on the back of Fed Governors making positive comments about a Fed Cut in December. Suddenly the likelihood of an ease has moved from less than 40% to 75% – a done deal. Stocks rallied. The explainers of the market commentariat cite the weakening economic picture – viewed darkly as it is – as justification for an ease. There is also the no small amount of pressure on the Fed politically to ease.
Think it through. Central banks easing rates is a sign of an economy is slowdown. Yet a central bank ease is seen as the boost AI stocks need to soar higher?
The expression “Dead-Cat Bounce” springs to mind. I think the phrase took root during the crash of 1987 when I was a journalist with Euromoney. It describes the likelihood that a deceased feline dropped out a high window might bounce when it hits the ground… but not a lot.
I am told the MAG 7 tech stocks are the most powerful and unstoppable economic force on the planet. They are all growing their earnings (really? Tesla?) Across the US economy, the bulk of US firms in the S&P 500 beat earnings estimates during the last reporting season. So…. Nothing to worry about then.
Yet, everyone knows the stock market is massively concentrated in the Mag 7 names. Strip them out, and would the US economy look strong and vibrant to external and internal buyers. Strip AI away, and what you might be left with in terms of the economy is a flatline landscape inhabited by Zombies looking for lunch. Scary.
A flatline market, a massively overhyped stock bubble, and an underlying economy that is essentially unfixed in terms of the new jobs, growth, homes and opportunity that was promised. How is that likely to end?
And just to make even more challenging, thrown in the first serious competition to the illusion of Global US Tech superiority that is now emerging from China? The approach is different – cheaper open-weight, small language model, open source AI’s, better EVs and affordable consumer tech… Take a close look and wonder just what your current bets on the US economy are actually worth?
It doesn’t actually matter if 1 billion European and US consumers might prefer to keep buying Western Teck like’s Apple next new-bright-shiny-thing or Musk’s Grok (heaven forbid), but 4 billion South-East Asian consumers will be the ones that pick tomorrows winners.
Out of time and back to the day job (No porridge tomorrow… travelling)
Bill Blain
CEO – Windshift Capital
Author – The Morning Porridge
Partner – Shard Capital
Special Advisor – Spitfire Strategic Capital
