MARKETS week ahead: October 23 – 29
Last week in the news
Geopolitical risks and Fed`s mimicking to the markets are continuing to shape the sentiment of investors. The US 10Y Treasury yields reached 5% for the first time since 2007, US equity markets were traded lower, while Gold is traded near $2K. The crypto market also had a positive week, with Bitcoin headed back toward $30K. It was a week full of news and surprising developments on financial markets.
Fed Chair Powell gave a speech to the Economic Club of New York on Thursday. He noted that the road to bringing inflation down to 2% will be “bumpy” and that currently nobody knows exact timing when this goal will be reached, but Fed officials will stay on the course of achieving their goals. He also did not provide indication that FOMC is necessarily pushing for higher interest rates from current levels. After his speech, the market changed sentiment, decreasing the probability of another rate hike during the course of this year. However, Powell once again noted that a fight with inflation will mean that economic growth and the labor market would have to slow down in the coming period. At the same time, he refused to comment on the potential for rate cuts at this moment.
Bicoin topped $30K for one more time at Friday`s trading session, amid increased investor`s confidence that the first BTC ETF might be approved by SEC as of the end of October. These assumptions were fueled by a comment from Coinbase Chief legal officer Paul Grewal, in a comment to CNBC. His rationale was “I`m quite hopeful that these (ETF) applications will be granted, if only because they should be granted under the law”. Although analysts are not sure if this will be the proper reason for SEC to approve first BTC ETF, still, markets are increasing probability of approval of filings of few big names in the financial industry, as well as, that SEC did not appeal the ruling in the Grayscale`s case. JPMorgan also issued a report on this topic, expressing their positive opinion on the possibility that the BTC ETF will be approved. Their deadline is set for 21st January next year, as this is the last date when application of Ark21Shares should be approved or dismissed. The rationale that JPMorgan is stressing in this case is that SEC would rather approve several applications at once, instead of providing market advantage to any specific fund.
After receiving a $42.5 million fine from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2021, backed by allegations that USDT is not fully backed by USD, Tether announced that the company will publicly disclose data on its reserves backing USDT, starting from 2024. In its latest report, the company was holding $3.3 billion in excess reserves.
Crypto market cap
News about potential for the approval of the first BTC exchange traded fund are emerging as many investors and market practitioners are heating the market with their optimism. Even Larry Fink, the CEO of the BlackRock commented first BTC rally toward $30K after the fake news about ETF approval as “example of the pent-up interest in crypto”. The crypto market is for some time set for approval or disapproval of the ETF and only pending is final resolution. For some time in the past, the crypto market was traded sideways, waiting for the final SECs resolution. In case that an ETF is approved, this is going to be a huge milestone for the crypto market, with expectation that significant funds currently sitting on money market funds will be transferred to the crypto market. Estimates differ, depending on an analyst, but one thing is for sure and that is that the positive outcome of ETF filings by several large names in the financial industry, will certainly bring a lot of funds back into the crypto market. During the previous week total crypto market capitalization increased by more than 7%, adding $75B to its market cap. Daily trading volumes were increased to the level of $55B on a daily basis, compared to $ 41B traded during the previous week. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 46%, where it has added total $350B to the market cap.
Almost all coins gained during the previous week. Of course, BTC is the coin that will gain the most from the ETF approval, in which sense, the value of BTC increased the most during the week, adding $56B to its total market cap, which is a significant increase of more than 10% on a weekly basis. ETH also had a relatively good week, with an increase in market cap by $ 6B or more than 3% w/w. XRP was also in the group of significant gainers, with a surge in capitalization of $1.5B or 6%. During the previous week Solana had an excellent performance, where it added around $2.9B to its market capitalization, which is an increase of 31.4%. Following a surge in BTC value, Bitcoin Gold managed to increase its value by 13%, while Bitcoin Cash was up by 11.3%. Few other coins with relatively good performance during the week were LINK, which was up by 10%, while IOTA and Polygon increased their market value by more than 7% both.
There have been significant developments with circulating coins also. It seems that the majority of stake coins are slowly getting back on the market. The highest weekly movement had IOTA, with a surge in circulating coins of 7.2% on a weekly basis. Uniswap`s circulating coins were increased by 1.9%, while Polkadot managed to increase its coins by 1.5%. It also seems that Tether is getting back in the crypto game, as coin managed to increase its coins by 0.7%, which has not been seen for several months now. Majority of other coins gained at least 0.1% of new coins in circulation. This trend shows that the crypto market is slowly waking up, after the last two months of quiet movements.
Crypto futures market
Strong shifts on the spot market made an impact on the crypto futures market. Both BTC and ETH futures were traded higher during the week, for all maturities. BTC short term futures were traded higher by some 10%, while long term ones were traded above 7% higher from the end of the week before. BTC futures maturing in December this year ended the week at level of $30.190 or for 10% higher, while those maturing in December next year were up by 7.6%, ending the week at level $31.525. This is positive for the BTC, as investors are expecting the price of BTC to hold above $30K after eight straight weeks traded below this level.
ETH futures gained a bit less from BTC futures, but it was generally a positive week for ETH. Futures maturing in December this year gained the most from all other maturities, ending the week at level of $1.620 or 4.3% higher than the week before. Futures maturing in December 2024 ended the week at level $1.681 or 2.3% higher from the week before. It is interesting that there has not been enough market interest for these ETH maturities, so the price is still holding below $1.7K, for the second week in a row.
Geopolitical risks and Fed`s mimicking to the markets are continuing to shape the sentiment of investors. The US 10Y Treasury yields reached 5% for the first time since 2007, US equity markets were traded lower, while Gold is traded near $2K. The crypto market also had a positive week, with Bitcoin headed back toward $30K. It was a week full of news and surprising developments on financial markets.
Fed Chair Powell gave a speech to the Economic Club of New York on Thursday. He noted that the road to bringing inflation down to 2% will be “bumpy” and that currently nobody knows exact timing when this goal will be reached, but Fed officials will stay on the course of achieving their goals. He also did not provide indication that FOMC is necessarily pushing for higher interest rates from current levels. After his speech, the market changed sentiment, decreasing the probability of another rate hike during the course of this year. However, Powell once again noted that a fight with inflation will mean that economic growth and the labor market would have to slow down in the coming period. At the same time, he refused to comment on the potential for rate cuts at this moment.
Bicoin topped $30K for one more time at Friday`s trading session, amid increased investor`s confidence that the first BTC ETF might be approved by SEC as of the end of October. These assumptions were fueled by a comment from Coinbase Chief legal officer Paul Grewal, in a comment to CNBC. His rationale was “I`m quite hopeful that these (ETF) applications will be granted, if only because they should be granted under the law”. Although analysts are not sure if this will be the proper reason for SEC to approve first BTC ETF, still, markets are increasing probability of approval of filings of few big names in the financial industry, as well as, that SEC did not appeal the ruling in the Grayscale`s case. JPMorgan also issued a report on this topic, expressing their positive opinion on the possibility that the BTC ETF will be approved. Their deadline is set for 21st January next year, as this is the last date when application of Ark21Shares should be approved or dismissed. The rationale that JPMorgan is stressing in this case is that SEC would rather approve several applications at once, instead of providing market advantage to any specific fund.
After receiving a $42.5 million fine from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2021, backed by allegations that USDT is not fully backed by USD, Tether announced that the company will publicly disclose data on its reserves backing USDT, starting from 2024. In its latest report, the company was holding $3.3 billion in excess reserves.
Crypto market cap
News about potential for the approval of the first BTC exchange traded fund are emerging as many investors and market practitioners are heating the market with their optimism. Even Larry Fink, the CEO of the BlackRock commented first BTC rally toward $30K after the fake news about ETF approval as “example of the pent-up interest in crypto”. The crypto market is for some time set for approval or disapproval of the ETF and only pending is final resolution. For some time in the past, the crypto market was traded sideways, waiting for the final SECs resolution. In case that an ETF is approved, this is going to be a huge milestone for the crypto market, with expectation that significant funds currently sitting on money market funds will be transferred to the crypto market. Estimates differ, depending on an analyst, but one thing is for sure and that is that the positive outcome of ETF filings by several large names in the financial industry, will certainly bring a lot of funds back into the crypto market. During the previous week total crypto market capitalization increased by more than 7%, adding $75B to its market cap. Daily trading volumes were increased to the level of $55B on a daily basis, compared to $ 41B traded during the previous week. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 46%, where it has added total $350B to the market cap.
Almost all coins gained during the previous week. Of course, BTC is the coin that will gain the most from the ETF approval, in which sense, the value of BTC increased the most during the week, adding $56B to its total market cap, which is a significant increase of more than 10% on a weekly basis. ETH also had a relatively good week, with an increase in market cap by $ 6B or more than 3% w/w. XRP was also in the group of significant gainers, with a surge in capitalization of $1.5B or 6%. During the previous week Solana had an excellent performance, where it added around $2.9B to its market capitalization, which is an increase of 31.4%. Following a surge in BTC value, Bitcoin Gold managed to increase its value by 13%, while Bitcoin Cash was up by 11.3%. Few other coins with relatively good performance during the week were LINK, which was up by 10%, while IOTA and Polygon increased their market value by more than 7% both.
There have been significant developments with circulating coins also. It seems that the majority of stake coins are slowly getting back on the market. The highest weekly movement had IOTA, with a surge in circulating coins of 7.2% on a weekly basis. Uniswap`s circulating coins were increased by 1.9%, while Polkadot managed to increase its coins by 1.5%. It also seems that Tether is getting back in the crypto game, as coin managed to increase its coins by 0.7%, which has not been seen for several months now. Majority of other coins gained at least 0.1% of new coins in circulation. This trend shows that the crypto market is slowly waking up, after the last two months of quiet movements.
Crypto futures market
Strong shifts on the spot market made an impact on the crypto futures market. Both BTC and ETH futures were traded higher during the week, for all maturities. BTC short term futures were traded higher by some 10%, while long term ones were traded above 7% higher from the end of the week before. BTC futures maturing in December this year ended the week at level of $30.190 or for 10% higher, while those maturing in December next year were up by 7.6%, ending the week at level $31.525. This is positive for the BTC, as investors are expecting the price of BTC to hold above $30K after eight straight weeks traded below this level.
ETH futures gained a bit less from BTC futures, but it was generally a positive week for ETH. Futures maturing in December this year gained the most from all other maturities, ending the week at level of $1.620 or 4.3% higher than the week before. Futures maturing in December 2024 ended the week at level $1.681 or 2.3% higher from the week before. It is interesting that there has not been enough market interest for these ETH maturities, so the price is still holding below $1.7K, for the second week in a row.
