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Meme-based cypto currency Dogecoin is falling after
Tesla
CEO
Elon Musk
‘s performance hosting Saturday Night Live. Right now, it’s a painful lesson to new cryptocurrency investors that markets are forward looking and investors typically sell on news.
Dogecoin is down 36% in Sunday morning trading, falling to 46 cents.
There were a few Dogecoin jokes Saturday night into Sunday morning. Musk started out joking it was a Mother’s Day gift for his mother Maye. In a sketch about the Old West Musk suggested a cryptocurrencies may be better than to the prevailing monetary system of that day—gold, dug out of the ground, and exchanged for green paper money.
The problem for Doge investors may have been on the Weekend Update segment of the show when Musk posed as financial expert Lloyd Ostertag to explain Dogecoin. After an exchange with host Michael Che and Colin Jost, trying to explain what Dogecoin is, Ostertag settled on “it’s a hustle.”
Dogecoin started out the year at a fraction of a cent. At 46 cents the crypto is still up almost 10,000% year to date, giving early Dogecoin investors something to laugh about.
Looking ahead, crypto traders can expect more volatility. No one, including Musk, has a good read on where Dogecoin will trade in the long run.
As for Musk’s company Tesla, it got a lot of free press including many online video posted showing off the company’s new Cybertruck due to be sold at the end of the year.
Tesla stock could use a catalyst like free PR. Shares are down about 5% year to date, trailing behind comparable gains of the
S&P 500
and
Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Timing, like Dogecoin shows, can be everything with volatile assets. Tesla shares are still up about 310% over the past 12 months.
Write to editors@barrons.com