Today is Monday, September 20, 2021.

If the Federal Reserve started to taper this year then the stock market would probably suffer a selloff, says professional stock trader Tony Wilson in a new episode of the Early Bird podcast.

Fed’s Impact: For Wilson, the Federal Reserve’s act of “printing money” over the years has been terrible for the average retail investor.

Technicals Over Fundamentals: Throw the fundamentals out the window, Wilson says. Investors should focus on technical analysis.

Keep It Simple: Wilson’s portfolio only has 10 stocks and with good reason.

Final Thoughts: Wilson explains that new investors should learn technical analysis to trade stocks, so listen to the latest episode of the Early Bird Podcast.

Notable Earnings Today: Lennar (NYSE: LEN), Inventiva (Nasdaq: IVA).

Notable IPOs Today: Software Acquisition Group Inc. III Class A Common Stock (Nasdaq: SWAG), XPAC Acquisition Corp. Class A Ordinary Shares (Nasdaq: XPAX).

Notable Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns Ending Today: n/a.

Notable Economic Events Today: National Association of Home Builders index (10:00 a.m. ET).

Auto giant Toyota (NYSE: TM) announced that its new 2022 Tundra pickup includes a hybrid engine.

Details: Essentially, Toyota is rolling out two versions of its Tundra pickup next year, including a hybrid model.

Data: Shares of Toyota are up 18.04% this year, up 9.89% in the past 30 days, and up 1.96% in the past week.

Bigger Picture: The positive news for the car giant comes as a federal safety investigation on airbags in vehicles from leading automakers opened on Sunday.

Final Thoughts: Toyota does sport a low price-to-earnings ratio, which means this stock has value.

Investors who are looking for a hedge against inflation (which is when prices for goods and services in an economy spike) are increasingly drawn to cryptocurrency.

Argument For: Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, reportedly once contended that since Bitcoin will be limited in supply, it could potentially be a hedge against inflation. This is similar to gold (another hedge against inflation) and different from cash (which can be printed indefinitely by the Federal Reserve).

Data: As inflation has jumped in the past year, mostly due to economic policies from the pandemic, more investors have jumped on the crypto bandwagon. About 1 in 10 people are investing in crypto, and more digital coins are being created.

Argument Against: Critics say that Bitcoin’s price drop from May through July (which is when inflation crept up) is proof that crypto is not a hedge after all. This is true for other digital coins that dropped during that time too. The price of Bitcoin has since recovered some - but not all - of its value since peaking in April 2021.

Final Thoughts: Cryptocurrency’s hedge theory will be put to the test this year. How will it compare to other inflation bets?

Not In Stable Condition: Why Washington Worries About Stablecoins (New York Times)

Good Explanation: European Online Lender October Explains How Repayments are Handled Via its Platform (Crowdfund Insider)

More Research Available: Lankershim Taft launches Taft Research to help Retail Investors worldwide (PR Newswire)

Time for a Plan: UK has plans to protect consumers from soaring gas prices (Reuters)

Speaking Out: U.S. trade official called India's Mastercard ban 'draconian'-emails (Reuters / Yahoo!)

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