Week of August 11, 2025

Welcome to this week’s analysis on which altcoins are performing well and which ones are not. You can view the list here:

Altcoin Screener Sample List

Macro Update

With PMI top of mind lately, I wanted to share some additional charts suggesting that US PMI could keep rising which is bullish for small cap stocks and altcoins. Let’s take a look at Sweden Manufacturing PMI which tends to be a lead indicator for US Manufacturing PMI:

One of the first things you can tell from the recent data that Sweden has been in expansion (PMI above 50) since April 2024. I looked at previous times that Sweden PMI crossed above 50 and here’s what happened next with US PMI:

As you can see, most of the time it’s either a coincident indicator or leads about 1 month from US PMI. Then we have our current cycle: the outlier at the top right in the chart when US PMI briefly crossed above 50 in January 2025 but then dipped down again. Some good news regarding this data: Sweden almost always crossed above 50 before the US, with no cases where the US crossed first in this filtered dataset.

Why Sweden Might Lead

• Open economy effect: Sweden is highly dependent on global trade, particularly exports to the EU and US. Its manufacturing sector responds quickly to global demand shifts.
• Global cycle sensitivity: Sweden’s smaller, more export-driven manufacturing base tends to react earlier to shifts in global industrial activity (China, Germany, global inventory cycles) than the larger, more diversified US economy.
• Purchasing Managers’ behavior: Swedish manufacturing managers tend to respond faster to improving order books because capacity adjustments are smaller and more flexible compared to the US.

Implications for This Cycle

• If this historical pattern holds, Sweden’s April 2024 cross suggests the US PMI should either already be in recovery territory or be approaching it imminently in the current data.
• Sweden’s cross above 50 is often a “first green shoot” signal for global manufacturing recovery. It tends to mark the start of the upswing in the industrial cycle, which historically aligns with early-phase equity outperformance for cyclicals and small caps, and often coincides with the early acceleration phase for commodities.

Caveat

• The relationship is not perfect — the 2000–2003 and 2009–2010 cycles showed longer lead times due to unique macro shocks (dot-com aftermath, GFC recovery).
• Related to the above, I think this recovery from the COVID pandemic boom seems very similar to the 2000-2003 cycle in terms of a unique macro shock that resulted in a prolonged US PMI contraction.

Comparison of this Cycle with 2000-2003 Cycle

Key Similarities

• Sweden as early signal: In both cycles, Sweden PMI crossed 50 well before US PMI, reflecting its sensitivity to global trade.
• Prolonged US PMI contraction: Both periods saw an extended US manufacturing slump lasting ~18 months or more.
• Head fakes: In both, the US had temporary improvements above 50 before rolling back down — signaling fragile recoveries until the sustained turn.
• Global recovery start: The actual sustained US PMI expansion came after a clear, broad-based global upturn that Sweden signaled early.

Key Differences

• Interest rate path: 2000–2003 had rapid, aggressive easing — current cycle has a “higher for longer” policy stance, slowing the handoff from Sweden’s recovery to US manufacturing.
• Globalization vs fragmentation: Early 2000s saw synchronized global trade expansion; today’s environment has more regional supply chains and geopolitical friction.
• Credit cycle: 2000–2003 had wider credit stress that eased alongside recovery; today’s tight spreads suggest financial conditions haven’t transmitted the slowdown as severely.
• Tech backdrop: Early 2000s was tech unwinding; today’s is tech boom (AI) dominating capital flows and possibly delaying cyclical rotation.

Bitcoin Update

As I noted last week, Bitcoin did a retest of the $112,000 level and bounced higher. It looks like the next move is to break out to new all-time highs.

Ethereum Update

There’s been a lot of chatter around Ethereum lately so let’s cover that. I previously didn’t cover Ethereum much because there wasn’t much to cover. Its price performance has been fairly lackluster this cycle until recently. Even if it did go higher, I still didn’t expect for it to outperform other altcoins I’m focused on mainly because 1) the lackluster performance since 2023 and 2) its market cap is so large now that the potential for returns is diminishing 3) there are alternatives such as Solana and Sui that have been outperforming it for most of this cycle. I am not advocating getting a position in it at this point because that ship has sailed in terms of potential returns. However now that ETH is showing strength lately, we should be paying more attention as a barometer for risk appetite with altcoins. This visual is the main reason why which has been popular on X lately:

The more ETH goes up, the more risk appetite increases in due time. In a future newsletter, I will try to dive deeper in how we can measure these different phases more objectively with the data but I think where we are currently is Phase 2 and this will confirm it once ETH breaks above its all-time high. Here’s the reason it’s good to start paying attention to ETH:

The ETH/BTC pair seems to have bottomed around 0.02 which also occurred in January 2020 before altcoins went parabolic. Now that this has crossed above MA200 and seems to be holding above it for now, we are kicking off the much anticipated alt season. The next thing I am watching for is the cycle top which you can see that when it reached around this 0.06 level in January 2018 and in November 2021, it marked the cycle top in altcoins. This won’t be the only indicator I’m looking for and I encourage everyone to compare against multiple when we get to that point. Exciting times ahead. Now is not the time to fade altcoins.

Solana Update

Solana bounced off MA200 and it looks like it will test the $200 level and likely break through that to around the $250 level next.

Solana vs. Bitcoin is still under MA200 but with the momentum in altcoins growing, I expect this to go higher. Just a matter of patience.

Dogecoin Update

Dogecoin seems to be repeating the same pattern with a 1) triple bottom 2) initial breakout of downtrend and re-test previous resistance as support 3) then goes parabolic. So far we have seen criteria #1 and #2 and I think #3 is next.

Sui Update

Sui looks like it’s going higher and will break above $4 soon.

Large Caps

For large caps, here’s the ones that stand out on a long term timeframe:

• XRP
• Hedera
• Stellar
• Ethereum

Pepe successfully bounced off MA200 and is looking good to go higher.

Model Portfolio Update

The open positions is showing a positive return of roughly 35%:

The overall portfolio performance considering closed positions is roughly a 15% positive return:

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