US stocks may be set for a subdued start to a big week of earnings, but bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been far from silent.
Bitcoin prices BTCUSD,
collapsed over the weekend, reaching $ 51,907 at one point – down about 20% from a recent peak of $ 64,829 in February. The benchmark crypto recovered somewhat on Sunday evening, trading at $ 56,341 on Monday.
Some see the withdrawal as a pause, including the former Goldman Sachs GS,
hedge fund manager Raoul Pal. The crypto bull said in a tweet that he always feels “relieved” after major liquidations of leveraged longs on crypto, adding that it is “clearing the market.”
In our call of the day, Miller Tabak & Co., chief market strategist Matt Maley, said investors could not draw any conclusions from the weekend’s action, but this week’s normal trading hours were crucial.
“We had said it was important to the short-term bullish case that bitcoin had in the mid-$ 60s[000]is towards the end of the week. That didn’t happen and now it’s trading lower, so that’s not good either, ”he said.
However, Maley noted that weekend trading was “very thin” and historically hasn’t been a good indicator of how bitcoin will trade next week. He added that the catalyst for much of the decline appeared to be “very vague chatter” about a US crackdown on bitcoin.
He admitted that the fundamental long-term argument surrounding bitcoin gives investors “almost no insight” into how the asset will be traded at any given time in the short term.
Therefore, two major technical levels should be closely watched by investors, he said, including Thursday’s high at $ 63,400. “Any meaningful close above that level should be very optimistic,” noted Maley. The other is the late March low of $ 52,000 at the end of March. Any significant close below that level would “raise a big flag of warning about the short-term potential” for bitcoin.
The markets
US Equity Futures YM00,
ES00,
NQ00,
down early Monday, after the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and S&P 500 SPX,
indexes closed at a record high on Friday. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury BX: TMUBMUSD10Y
decreased to 1.56%. European equities rose higher, while Asian equities rose on optimism about the global recovery.
The buzz
The best American infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that he would be “very surprised” if the COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson’s JNJ pharmaceuticals,
was not resumed in some form on Friday.
First-quarter earnings season set to accelerate this week, with beverage company Coca-Cola KO,
tech giant IBM IBM,
and United Airlines UAL,
all reporting on Monday, and Johnson & Johnson, streaming platform Netflix NFLX,
and consumer goods company Procter & Gamble PG,
set to report on Tuesday.
The audio-based social network Clubhouse has closed a round of funding that reportedly values the company at approximately $ 4 billion.
Quarantine-free travel bubbles opened Monday between Australia and New Zealand, much to the relief of thousands of families kept separated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A leading group of 12 English, Spanish and Italian clubs divided European football on Sunday by announcing the formation of a largely closed Super League. The move is being led in part by US owners Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United. Shares in the Italian club Juventus JUVE,
rose 12% in early trading, while Manchester United’s shares were 4% higher in premarket trading.
Random reads
“Louie Louie” guitarist Mike Mitchell dies aged 77.
Gnome Limits: British garden centers run out of gnomes after the blockage of the Suez Canal.
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