Good morning, investors. I spent my Friday at Baron Capital’s 32nd Investment Conference, hosted by billionaire Ron Baron.

I spoke with several shareholders who have all made a lot of money on Tesla, listened to portfolio managers talk about AI and enjoyed a surprise live concert from Pink who closed out the event with gusto.

I also loved how Ron sends everyone home with ice cream in hand.

Now let’s turn to bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not having the year many investors expected.

On Sunday, the largest cryptocurrency dipped 2.2% to $93,135, turning its year-to-date returns negative by 0.03%.

At the start of 2025, many analysts and investors expected bitcoin to have a banner year given the Trump administration’s focus on cryptocurrencies, expectations for lower interest rates, and accelerating demand from ETFs.

That hasn’t exactly panned out.

Although crypto adoption has broadened to governments and nation states, and bitcoin now underpins some of the most popular products on Wall Street, the tailwinds that were supposed to define the year haven’t translated into price strength.

Rather, the asset has drifted sideways as gold, stocks, and even bonds have outpaced it since January.

In fact, over the last 41 days, the crypto market as a whole has erased $1.1 trillion in market cap, according to an analysis from the Kobeissi Letter.

For context, bitcoin has only seen a negative annual return three times since 2010:

To veteran macro investor Jordi Visser, the sideways trading of recent months signals maturation of an asset class.

Early adopters who bought in for ideological reasons have made ridiculous returns over the last decade, and it’s possible that they are now cashing out and transferring ownership to institutions, newcomers and retail traders.

Here’s how Visser described it in a recent essay:

To follow that line of reasoning would suggest that the stagnation on the price chart is simply the market digesting something like a changing of the guard.

A transition like this, according to Visser, is usually slow, uneven and marked by boring stretches of consolidation.

In effect, the political momentum, ETF boom and institutional adoption this year collided with a market where long-time holders and zealots have started to take profits — ultimately resulting in an asset that’s sturdier, more widely held, and increasingly governed by the same forces that drive gold and equities.

At any rate, JPMorgan analysts maintain that bitcoin can still almost double from current levels over the next year.

“The bitcoin production cost has empirically acted as a floor for bitcoin, so a $94,000 production cost implies very limited downside to the current bitcoin price,” analysts wrote in a recent note.

They reiterated their 6-12 month price target of $170,000.

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📈 Berkshire Hathaway bought $4 billion in Alphabet stock. Warren Buffett’s conglomerate was still a net-seller of stocks for the 12th consecutive quarter. Shares of Google rose in after-hours trading. (WSJ)

❌ Former Fed Governor Kugler violated trading rules while at the Fed. Adriana Kugler abruptly resigned three months ago, and a new report said she broke central bank rules regarding stock trading tied to shares in Apple, Southwest Airlines, Cava, and Caterpillar. (CNBC)

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🗓November 17, 2010: Warren Buffett published an op-ed in the New York Times titled, “Pretty Good for Government Work,” in response to the government’s unprecedented intervention during the 2008 financial crisis.

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📰 I’m Phil Rosen, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Opening Bell Daily. I’ve published books, lived on three continents, and won awards for my journalism, which has appeared in Business Insider, Fortune, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg and Inc. Magazine.

I write our flagship newsletter to prepare you for each trading day — unpacking markets, economic data and Wall Street with analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Feedback? Reply to this email, ping me on X @philrosenn, or write me directly at [email protected].