US equity markets rallied hard into the weekend, with the S&P 500 ending Friday trade over 3% higher, taking its weekly gains to nearly 6.5%. Market commentators cited an unexpected decline in a measure of US consumer inflation expectations that is closely followed by the Fed as easing fears about excessive monetary tightening from the US central banks, thus supporting the rally in equities. Throughout the week, rising bets for a near-term US recession were also cited as broadly supporting risk appetite in equity markets, with market commentators arguing that given weaker growth with lower inflation and reduce pressure on the Fed to tighten so aggressively.
The key takeaway here is that the improvement in US equity risk appetite has facilitated further upside in cryptocurrency markets, which have been closely correlated to stocks in recent months. As of Saturday, total cryptocurrency market cap was around $940 billion, up around $60 billion this week and up over 23% versus last week’s lows around $760 billion.
Bitcoin is currently trading with a positive bias in the mid-$21,000s and eyeing a break above earlier weekly highs in the upper-$21,000s. Any such break could facilitate a push higher towards the 21-Day Moving Average in the low-$24,000s. Bitcoin’s weekly gains currently stand at just over 4.0%. Meanwhile, altcoins are outperforming, indicative of buoyant crypto sentiment. As a result, Bitcoin’s crypto market dominance is on course to have dropped a further 1% to around 43.5% this week, down sharply from above 48% at the start of the month.
“This weekend could be another testing period for the cryptocurrency (Bitcoin), despite the resilience shown this week in holding back above such a major level,” Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said in a note on Friday. “Support still looks shaky below and another break could see confidence in the space really put to the test,” he warned.
Ethereum broke above $1,200 on Friday and is currently holding above this level, taking weekly gains to about 8.5%. If the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap can break above resistance in the mid-$1,200s per token, the door is open for a push towards the 21DMA near $1,350. Shiba Inu, meanwhile, has been the best performing top 20 crypto in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap, with gains of over 12%, taking SHIB/USD to around $0.0000115. Avalanche and Solana are the next best top 20 performers, up around 7.5% in the last 24 hours each.
Next week is set to be a busy one for big US data releases and Fed commentary. Durable Goods Orders and more housing data is out on Monday, followed by a widely followed Consumer Confidence survey on Tuesday. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and a few other of the bank’s policymakers will be orating on Wednesday, followed by the release of May Core PCE inflation data on Thursday (this is the Fed’s favored inflation gauge). Finally, the Institute of Supply Management’s widely followed Manufacturing PMI survey is set for release on Friday.
The playbook for stocks and crypto markets right now appears to be that worse economic data (anything to increase recession bets) and anything to suggest easing inflation is good for risk appetite. This is likely to be the case next week.
