Weekly Market Update: Prices Hold Steady

A quick snapshot of what happened over the last couple of weeks before we return to the normal newsletter format. 

It had to happen, finally some profit taking with a cadre of long term holders of BTC taking profit as prices hit an all time high. This in turn led to some ETF outflows when the BTC price hitUS$66k. This was quickly gobbled up and we have now started oscillating between the US$66-70k range (NZ$110 118k). 

In crypto news Kucoin has been charged by US officials, the SEC has been granted permission to sue Coinbase and SBF got 25 years for his fraudulent activities.  

In the global economy, manufacturing is picking up globally with both the US and China posting expansionary numbers. Inflation, as measured by PCE, came in as expected in the US.

In Asia, China’s manufacturing continues to improve, unlike their housing market. While Japan’s inflation continues to fall, as does industrial output. The BoJ pivot is making sense now.

While across the ditch inflation remains steady, here in New Zealand, both consumers and businesses are feeling the pinch with confidence continuing to fall.  Perhaps in response, the RBNZ has finally hinted that rate cut relief is coming. 

Despite the price volatility of the last few weeks, the crypto market sentiment remains in extreme greed.

Highlights this week: 

• This week asset prices have definitely trended downwards with the majority of the Top 30 assets posting price declines.  
• Over the week we have had more larger sell orders come through in what we interpret as some profit taking as the sell orders were dominated by BTC and stablecoins. 
• The trend amongst buyers is towards larger cap assets with BTC, SOL and ETH being the most popular assets. 
• At the time of writing BTC and ETH were down 6% and 8% respectively. 
• Privacy blockchain Verge (XVG) bucked the trend to be our best performing asset for the week, up 98%. Of the majors, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) led the way, up 33%. 
• WorldCoin (WLD) was our biggest loser this week, down 21%. 

View all top gainers: Visit the top gainers page to find out more.

Highlights from the crypto space

The past couple of weeks have reminded us that the Bitcoin ETFs can have outflow days as well. On a net level the ETF’s still bought over 2x the new supply produced by miners in March.

This imbalance will become more extreme with this month’s halving expected on 19 April. 

Bitfinex is reporting that 40% of the recent sellers are long term holders that have started selling BTC now we are at an all time high.

The U.S. government moved roughly $2 billion in Bitcoin from Silk Road to a Coinbase wallet, according to Arkham Intelligence. Bitcoin’s price dipped slightly following the news, which has since recovered somewhat.

A judge has ruled that the SEC can sue Coinbase for running an unregistered securities exchange. 

KuCoin is in trouble with the CFTC, the CEO has announced a goodwill gesture. Traders would just like to be able to withdraw their funds. 

Over $1bn in US treasuries have been tokenised. 

SBF got a 25 year sentence for his FTX hijinks. Fraud is fraud, so reassuring that the crims get caught and punished. 

And that wraps up our highlights from around the crypto space. Stay tuned below for other macroeconomic updates from around the world.

What is going on in the world of Finance … 

🌎 Macro news TLDR: …US PCE as expected.

U.S. economic news

The FOMC held US interest rates for the 5th consecutive meeting. Key commentary alluded to a lack of data supporting that they had beaten inflation yet.

CME fedwatch has the chances of a rate cut at 56% in June. Manufacturing PMI went into expansion territory for the first time in 1.5 years, reaching 50.3.

PCE inflation was right on track with estimates coming in at 2.8% annualised while Core PCE came back to 2.5%. 

And in Europe…

German CPI continues to cool, coming in at 2.3%. 

Meanwhile in Asia Pacific…

China’s Manufacturing PMI increased to 51.1 in March. In Japan jobless claims rose, industrial production fell, and inflation came back to 2.6%.

India’s university graduates are posting unemployment numbers of 29%. Australia’s CPI was steady at 3.4%, slightly below expectations. 

In New Zealand, both Consumer and Business confidence continues to fall and the RBNZ has hinted that lower interest rates are getting closer.

In some good news, Global dairy trade auction results were positive. 

That’s a wrap for this week. 

Stay tuned for the next update.

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