Good morning, investors. Investors toss around theories and forecasts about the market all the time, but seldom do they pan out, and fewer still pan out immediately.
Mr. Market may have just made our team at Opening Bell Daily the latest exception to the rule.
Rotating hard assets
Gold’s reign as the dominant hard asset of 2025 could be nearing its end.
The precious metal is having its best year in five decades with a roughly 54% return.
In breaking record after record, gold has easily outpaced its digital counterpart in bitcoin, which has gained “just” 22% over the same period.
But as Opening Bell Daily’s co-founder Anthony Pompliano pointed out in a note this week, a “great rotation” from gold to bitcoin could be upon us.
He highlighted that, historically, bitcoin’s trajectory trails gold by about 100 days.
That was a prescient and well-timed call, according to the latest price action.
Gold has marched higher over the last three months while bitcoin has fallen as much as 10%.
But that reversed on Tuesday, with the returns of both assets suddenly converging toward one another as if they heard a rumor of a great rotation.
“We may be on the doorsteps of the great rotation from gold to bitcoin,” Pompliano said Monday. “If that theory comes true, bitcoin will likely have a fireworks ending to the year.”
The move becomes more clear when you zoom in on the chart.
In the context of previous bitcoin bull markets, this pattern makes sense.
As much as gold has surprised global investors with its strength, bitcoin has surprised with its relative weakness compared to its own track record.
Since 2015, bitcoin has averaged:
20% gain in October
59% gain in Q4
82% compounded annualized growth rate
Meanwhile, gold has averaged an 11.6% annual gain over the last decade — a figure that makes its recent outperformance even more of an anomaly.
In any case, there are structural reasons both assets will continue to appreciate for years to come.
Governments will continue to debase their currencies
Central banks will continue accumulating gold (and eventually bitcoin, as Deutsche Bank predicts)
Rising geopolitical uncertainty will accelerate the flight to hard assets
The “great rotation” is as much a battle between gold and bitcoin as it is a fight to preserve purchasing power.
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Market snapshot
Elsewhere
🎢 Six Flags stock jumped 17% after Travis Kelce joined an activist investor campaign with hedge fund Jana Partners. The NFL star and a group of investors built a 9% stake in the theme park company worth roughly $200 million. (Yahoo Finance)
🎥 Warner Bros. Discovery stock jumped 11% after it announced it’s exploring a potential sale of its media holdings and streaming assets, which could include CNN and TNT. Paramount stock fell on the news. (WSJ)
🚗 General Motors stock soared 15% after beating earnings. The automaker said tariffs haven’t weighed on the business as much as expected, and it now forecasts higher revenue for the year than previously stated. (Investors Business Daily)
📈 Beyond Meat is now a meme stock. The one-time penny stock skyrocketed 60% on Tuesday after Roundhill Investments added the name to its MEME ETF. Beyond Meat is also coming off a new deal with Walmart. (CNBC)
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Rapid-fire
Netflix stock tumbled after hours despite steady profit and revenue growth (WSJ)
The Dow set a new record closing level following Coca-Cola, 3M’s strong earnings (CNBC)
GE Aerospace stock ticked higher after beating earnings expectations and raising guidance (Barron’s)
Rare earths mining is booming as the US, China and AI companies fixate on the industry (Yahoo Finance)
Lockheed Martin beat earnings expectations but the stock fell 2.7% (Barron’s)
Safe haven assets and risk assets are both climbing at the same time (Pomp Letter)
The S&P 500 has erased all its losses from the mid-October sell off (Opening Bell Daily)
On this day
🗓 October 22, 1962: US stocks fell across the board as President John F. Kennedy announced a naval blockade on Cuba after confirming Soviet missile-site activity there, escalating tensions in what became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Last thing
Gold was adding 1 Bitcoin market cap a week recently, I don’t think people realize how silly things can get if capital even remotely rotates
— #Will (#@WClementeIII)
3:10 PM • Oct 21, 2025
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About me
📰 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].