Hello and welcome back to Equity, the Tech Ranch Podcast, where we unpack the numbers and the nuance behind the headlines.

It is May 22nd, 2023, and this is our Monday show where we unpacked the weekend and look ahead to the week to come.

What's on the show today? Well, stocks and crypto, all things meta and data, chips, and then a couple of really cool startups.

Let's go.

All right, let's take a look at the markets

and we'll start with stocks.

Over in Asia shares are mostly higher today.

They're down across Europe, not that much and American stocks are

largely flat in pre-market trading this morning. Now the macro perspective that you need to know here

is that the American government is currently locked in an argument concerning whether to pay its bills or not,

with one political party refusing to cover its own tab unless the other makes cuts to its own priorities.

No, this is not good for financial markets, and yes, America looks incredibly dumb for doing this very dumb thing again and again, and this time again.

Flipping the page from the stock market to crypto what's going on well prices are just about

where we left them last week so if you are a crypto head I hope you appreciate

Bitcoin at around twenty seven thousand dollars or eith and around $1,800.

I am still surprised at the lack of volatility

or real price movement in a market that has historically

been very exciting.

Now, there are a lot of meme coins popping off and no, I'm not going to share what they are called to avoid being accused of shilling or whatever, but it's silly season yet again, again in cryptoland when it comes to the invention of new and joke currencies.

Volume overall is low, however, with the block reporting late last week that the quote

seven-day moving average for crypto exchange volumes has hit its lowest level since the beginning of the year.

Now you may say to yourself the meme coins will save them, but they haven't so far.

...