BTC price starts the celebrated month of “Uptober” with a trip past $28,000, but the question on everyone’s lips is whether Bitcoin can hold its ground.
Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week, a new month and a new quarter with a firm bullish move past $28,000.
The largest cryptocurrency greets “Uptober” in style with its best weekly close since mid-August — what lies in store next?
After mixed BTC price action in September, market participants were prepared for a potentially volatile monthly close, but in the end, this ended up in the bulls’ favor.
With October frequently the sight of tangible BTC price gains, excitement is brewing over what might happen in the coming weeks.
Macro triggers may not hold the answer immediately, as October begins with a quiet phase for United States macro data and the government averting a shutdown at the last minute.
Bitcoin fundamentals are not yet echoing the spike in spot price, with mining difficulty due to decrease at its next automated readjustment on Oct. 2.
Cointelegraph looks at these topics and more in the weekly digest of BTC price catalysts lying in wait.
Bitcoin bulls acknowledge BTC price reversal risk
In the run-up to the Oct. 1 weekly close, Bitcoin had already cleared the end of the September monthly candle with little overall volatility.
That all changed as the week ended, with a sudden growth spurt taking BTC price action to just shy of $28,000. In the hours that followed, new local highs of $28,451 appeared on Bitstamp.
The move provided Bitcoin’s highest weekly close since mid-August, canceling out the weaker performance seen since.
“Bitcoin back up to $28,000,” Michaël van de Poppe, CEO and founder at MNTrading, told X (formerly Twitter) subscribers on the day.
“Might fully retrace, but the trend is clearly upwards. Every consolidation of Bitcoin will be a period where altcoins are starting to follow the path of Bitcoin. This quarter will be fun!”
Popular trader Skew likewise flagged the potential for a comedown, using exchange order book trends as proof.
“Pretty wide orderbook here in terms of available / resting liquidity,” he explained on the day.
“Bigger price reaction comes out of this imo Increasing ask liquidity on spot orderbooks; implies greater volume needed by spot takers to clear $28K - $29K (Market structure shift).”
BTC/USD 1-day chart with 200-week simple moving average (SMA). Source: TradingView
He added that the impetus to decide where the market headed now lay with spot traders.
$BTC Aggregate CVDs & Delta Mostly seeing sell pressure just in perps for now
Price decline with Perp CVD decline & Perp sell delta picking up
Keith Alan, co-founder of monitoring resource Material Indicators, posted a snapshot of the Binance order book, showing $28,000 as the main hurdle to overcome just after the move.
Bitcoin, he added, was now contending with resistance in the form of the 200-week moving average at $27,970.
“Expecting another run at resistance this month, but since I’m still in ‘Buy the Dip, Sell the Rip Mode’ I’m going to stick to those rules, take the quick money and look for the next setup,” part of accompanying commentary read.
“Expecting volatility to continue over the next 24 hours.”
BTC/USD order book data for Binance. Source: Keith Alan/X
A classic “Uptober?”
Bitcoin beginning October on a strong note puts it at odds with the scenes from last year.
A surprisingly sideways month followed, culminating in the FTX meltdown, which sent crypto markets tumbling to two-year lows later in Q4.
This year, so far, it feels different and more like the classic “Uptober” in years gone by. According to data from monitoring resource CoinGlass, BTC/USD has not finished October lower than it started since 2018.
Debating the topic, popular market commentators were happy to channel the spirit of 2021 — the year in which Q4 saw not a multiyear low but a new all-time high for Bitcoin.
“8 out the previous 10 Octobers were positive for Bitcoin,” popular analytics account Stack Hodler wrote in part of his own analysis on Oct. 1, noting that on average, returns during that time had averaged 22%.
Difficulty due to come off record high
In a turnaround from what has become the norm in recent months, Bitcoin network fundamentals are not mimicking the bullish mood on spot markets.
The latest estimates from data resource BTC.com show that conversely, difficulty is due to drop by 0.7% at its next automated readjustment on Oct. 2.
Currently at all-time highs, difficulty last gained almost 6% at a time when BTC price performance was decidedly uncertain.
Miner competition remains fierce, as Cointelegraph reported in September, and spikes in hash rate underscore the ever-changing environment as miners make long-term commitments to the network in the name of profitability.
With hash rate — the estimated processing power deployed to the network — also higher than ever, the classic mantra “price follows hash rate” has returned to the fore.
Not everyone adheres to the saying, with some of Bitcoin’s most revered names arguing that the opposite is true: that hash rate follows price.
Among them is Jameson Lopp, co-founder and chief technology officer at Bitcoin storage firm Casa.
Hashrate follows price. Some folks believe price follows hashrate, possibly because hashrate doesn't simply track ~spot~ price, but rather tracks some ~speculative~ future price. Miners are speculators too!
In a blog post released at the weekend, Lopp unveiled the results of his efforts to predict hash rate more accurately.
“By blending together many hashrate estimates and weighting them based upon recent estimates with a variety of trailing data time frames we were fairly easily able to improve upon the 1100 block estimate and decrease the average error rate by 13% and lower the standard deviation by 14%,” he summarized.
Depending on the resource used, hash rate values can differ considerably, with only the broad trend clearly visible to observers.
Bitcoin raw hash rate data (screenshot). Source: MiningPoolStats
Fed speakers headline macro diary
While Bitcoin gets excited into the first week of October, the same cannot be said for United States macro data, which is due a calmer start to the month.
The main would-be event of the week has arguably already occurred, as lawmakers averted a government shutdown at the last minute.
Ukraine aid formed the sticking point, with this being removed to strike a deal in Congress.
US Congress just passed a plan to avert US gov shut down.
This will likely calm the stock market and give us some green candles next week! Its a short term 45 days emergency extension.
Turning to the month’s outlook, the financial commentary resource The Kobeissi Letter focused on forthcoming commentary from officials at the Federal Reserve.
Ahead of the next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting to decide interest rate policy on Nov. 1, markets will continue to eye official language for clues.
“The next Fed meeting is in exactly one month. With 13 Fed speakers this week, we expect even more volatility,” Kobeissi summarized on X.
The next Fed meeting is in exactly one month.
With 13 Fed speakers this week, we expect even more volatility.
The latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows mixed feelings over what the FOMC will decide. The market currently puts the odds of rates remaining at their present levels at 62%.
Fed target rate probabilities chart. Source: CME Group
Analysis turns positive on dollar liquidity
Eyeing an associated macro phenomenon, meanwhile, financial commentator Tedtalksmacro pointed to U.S. liquidity trends and their impact on BTC price action going forward.
The relationship between global liquidity and risk asset performance is well documented — especially given the fluctuations occurring since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Late last week, Tedtalksmacro showed a divergence between net U.S. dollar liquidity and BTC/USD.
In the accompanying analysis, he argued that measuring delta over “outright liquidity” gave better insight. Regarding the outlook for Bitcoin, he was complimentary.
“Most importantly, the path of least resistance is now sideways / higher from here in the years to come... but substantial risk remains ( for at least a few quarters ), that you get chopped up before things rip quickly higher,” he wrote.
Measuring liquidity outright is not so useful for informing investment decisions and tends to lag, however, measuring the delta or change week-on-week, month-on-month is much more powerful.
As there is often a lead on the liquidity side, at least when comparing with BTC price… pic.twitter.com/1DvE7xInxC
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution…
Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution of the market into a “casino” following the pandemic, where retail traders have increased their speculative appetites.
“Such is unsurprising, given that retail investors often fall victim to the psychological behavior of the “fear of missing out.” The chart below shows the “dumb money index” versus the S&P 500. Once again, retail investors are very long equities relative to the institutional players ascribed to being the “smart money.””
“The difference between “smart” and “dumb money” investors shows that, more often than not, the “dumb money” invests near market tops and sells near market bottoms.”
That enthusiasm has increased sharply since last November as stocks surged in hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates. As noted by Sentiment Trader:
“Over the past 18 weeks, the straight-up rally has moved us to an interesting juncture in the Sentiment Cycle. For the past few weeks, the S&P 500 has demonstrated a high positive correlation to the ‘Enthusiasm’ part of the cycle and a highly negative correlation to the ‘Panic’ phase.”
That frenzy to chase the markets, driven by the psychological bias of the “fear of missing out,” has permeated the entirety of the market. As noted in “This Is Nuts:”
“Since then, the entire market has surged higher following last week’s earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA). The reason I say “this is nuts” is the assumption that all companies were going to grow earnings and revenue at Nvidia’s rate. There is little doubt about Nvidia’s earnings and revenue growth rates. However, to maintain that growth pace indefinitely, particularly at 32x price-to-sales, means others like AMD and Intel must lose market share.”
Of course, it is not just a speculative frenzy in the markets for stocks, specifically anything related to “artificial intelligence,” but that exuberance has spilled over into gold and cryptocurrencies.
Birds Of A Feather
There are a couple of ways to measure exuberance in the assets. While sentiment measures examine the broad market, technical indicators can reflect exuberance on individual asset levels. However, before we get to our charts, we need a brief explanation of statistics, specifically, standard deviation.
“Like a rubber band that has been stretched too far – it must be relaxed in order to be stretched again. This is exactly the same for stock prices that are anchored to their moving averages. Trends that get overextended in one direction, or another, always return to their long-term average. Even during a strong uptrend or strong downtrend, prices often move back (revert) to a long-term moving average.”
The idea of “stretching the rubber band” can be measured in several ways, but I will limit our discussion this week to Standard Deviation and measuring deviation with “Bollinger Bands.”
“Standard Deviation” is defined as:
“A measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is calculated as the square root of the variance.”
In plain English,this meansthat the further away from the average that an event occurs, the more unlikely it becomes. As shown below, out of 1000 occurrences, only three will fall outside the area of 3 standard deviations. 95.4% of the time, events will occur within two standard deviations.
A second measure of “exuberance” is “relative strength.”
“In technical analysis, the relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset. The RSI is displayed as an oscillator (a line graph that moves between two extremes) and can read from 0 to 100.
Traditional interpretation and usage of the RSI are that values of 70 or above indicate that a security is becoming overbought or overvalued and may be primed for a trend reversal or corrective pullback in price. An RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition.” – Investopedia
With those two measures, let’s look at Nvidia (NVDA), the poster child of speculative momentum trading in the markets. Nvidia trades more than 3 standard deviations above its moving average, and its RSI is 81. The last time this occurred was in July of 2023 when Nvidia consolidated and corrected prices through November.
Interestingly, gold also trades well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI reading of 75. Given that gold is supposed to be a “safe haven” or “risk off” asset, it is instead getting swept up in the current market exuberance.
The same is seen with digital currencies. Given the recent approval of spot, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the panic bid to buy Bitcoin has pushed the price well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI of 73.
In other words, the stock market frenzy to “buy anything that is going up” has spread from just a handful of stocks related to artificial intelligence to gold and digital currencies.
It’s All Relative
We can see the correlation between stock market exuberance and gold and digital currency, which has risen since 2015 but accelerated following the post-pandemic, stimulus-fueled market frenzy. Since the market, gold and cryptocurrencies, or Bitcoin for our purposes, have disparate prices, we have rebased the performance to 100 in 2015.
Gold was supposed to be an inflation hedge. Yet, in 2022, gold prices fell as the market declined and inflation surged to 9%. However, as inflation has fallen and the stock market surged, so has gold. Notably, since 2015, gold and the market have moved in a more correlated pattern, which has reduced the hedging effect of gold in portfolios. In other words, during the subsequent market decline, gold will likely track stocks lower, failing to provide its “wealth preservation” status for investors.
The same goes for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is substantially more volatile than gold and tends to ebb and flow with the overall market. As sentiment surges in the S&P 500, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies follow suit as speculative appetites increase. Unfortunately, for individuals once again piling into Bitcoin to chase rising prices, if, or when, the market corrects, the decline in cryptocurrencies will likely substantially outpace the decline in market-based equities. This is particularly the case as Wall Street can now short the spot-Bitcoin ETFs, creating additional selling pressure on Bitcoin.
Just for added measure, here is Bitcoin versus gold.
Not A Recommendation
There are many narratives surrounding the markets, digital currency, and gold. However, in today’s market, more than in previous years, all assets are getting swept up into the investor-feeding frenzy.
Sure, this time could be different. I am only making an observation and not an investment recommendation.
However, from a portfolio management perspective, it will likely pay to remain attentive to the correlated risk between asset classes. If some event causes a reversal in bullish exuberance, cash and bonds may be the only place to hide.
BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals.
Credit: Impact Journals
BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals.
Impact Journals will be participating as an exhibitor at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024 from April 5-10 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. This year, the AACR meeting theme is “Inspiring Science • Fueling Progress • Revolutionizing Care.”
Visit booth #4159 at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 to connect with members of the Agingteam.
About Aging-US:
Agingpublishes research papers in all fields of aging research including but not limited, aging from yeast to mammals, cellular senescence, age-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s diseases and their prevention and treatment, anti-aging strategies and drug development and especially the role of signal transduction pathways such as mTOR in aging and potential approaches to modulate these signaling pathways to extend lifespan. The journal aims to promote treatment of age-related diseases by slowing down aging, validation of anti-aging drugs by treating age-related diseases, prevention of cancer by inhibiting aging. Cancer and COVID-19 are age-related diseases.
Agingis indexed and archived byPubMed/Medline (abbreviated as “Aging (Albany NY)”), PubMed Central, Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (abbreviated as “Aging‐US” and listed in the Cell Biology and Geriatrics & Gerontology categories), Scopus (abbreviated as “Aging” and listed in the Cell Biology and Aging categories), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, EMBASE, META (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) (2018-2022), and Dimensions (Digital Science).
Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com and connect with us:
NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism
One month after the inflation outlook tracked by the NY Fed Consumer Survey extended their late 2023 slide, with 3Y inflation expectations in January sliding to a record low 2.4% (from 2.6% in December), even as 1 and 5Y inflation forecasts remained flat, moments ago the NY Fed reported that in February there was a sharp rebound in longer-term inflation expectations, rising to 2.7% from 2.4% at the three-year ahead horizon, and jumping to 2.9% from 2.5% at the five-year ahead horizon, while the 1Y inflation outlook was flat for the 3rd month in a row, stuck at 3.0%.
The increases in both the three-year ahead and five-year ahead measures were most pronounced for respondents with at most high school degrees (in other words, the "really smart folks" are expecting deflation soon). The survey’s measure of disagreement across respondents (the difference between the 75th and 25th percentile of inflation expectations) decreased at all horizons, while the median inflation uncertainty—or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes—declined at the one- and three-year ahead horizons and remained unchanged at the five-year ahead horizon.
Going down the survey, we find that the median year-ahead expected price changes increased by 0.1 percentage point to 4.3% for gas; decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 6.8% for the cost of medical care (its lowest reading since September 2020); decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 5.8% for the cost of a college education; and surprisingly decreased by 0.3 percentage point for rent to 6.1% (its lowest reading since December 2020), and remained flat for food at 4.9%.
We find the rent expectations surprising because it is happening just asking rents are rising across the country.
At the same time as consumers erroneously saw sharply lower rents, median home price growth expectations remained unchanged for the fifth consecutive month at 3.0%.
Turning to the labor market, the survey found that the average perceived likelihood of voluntary and involuntary job separations increased, while the perceived likelihood of finding a job (in the event of a job loss) declined. "The mean probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily in the next 12 months also increased, by 1.8 percentage points to 19.5%."
Mean unemployment expectations - or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now - decreased by 1.1 percentage points to 36.1%, the lowest reading since February 2022. Additionally, the median one-year-ahead expected earnings growth was unchanged at 2.8%, remaining slightly below its 12-month trailing average of 2.9%.
Turning to household finance, we find the following:
The median expected growth in household income remained unchanged at 3.1%. The series has been moving within a narrow range of 2.9% to 3.3% since January 2023, and remains above the February 2020 pre-pandemic level of 2.7%.
Median household spending growth expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point to 5.2%. The increase was driven by respondents with a high school degree or less.
Median year-ahead expected growth in government debt increased to 9.3% from 8.9%.
The mean perceived probability that the average interest rate on saving accounts will be higher in 12 months increased by 0.6 percentage point to 26.1%, remaining below its 12-month trailing average of 30%.
Perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated somewhat with fewer respondents reporting being better off than a year ago. Year-ahead expectations also deteriorated marginally with a smaller share of respondents expecting to be better off and a slightly larger share of respondents expecting to be worse off a year from now.
The mean perceived probability that U.S. stock prices will be higher 12 months from now increased by 1.4 percentage point to 38.9%.
At the same time, perceptions and expectations about credit access turned less optimistic: "Perceptions of credit access compared to a year ago deteriorated with a larger share of respondents reporting tighter conditions and a smaller share reporting looser conditions compared to a year ago."
Also, a smaller percentage of consumers, 11.45% vs 12.14% in prior month, expect to not be able to make minimum debt payment over the next three months
Last, and perhaps most humorous, is the now traditional cognitive dissonance one observes with these polls, because at a time when long-term inflation expectations jumped, which clearly suggests that financial conditions will need to be tightened, the number of respondents expecting higher stock prices one year from today jumped to the highest since November 2021... which incidentally is just when the market topped out during the last cycle before suffering a painful bear market.
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