Daily Market Analysis from NordFX

[Stan NordFX]

CryptoNews of the Week

- The number of “whales” among bitcoin holders, whose capital exceeds 1000 BTC, is rapidly declining. This figure has already reached its lows since the beginning of the year. At the same time, the volume of cryptocurrency on the exchanges, on the contrary, is at its maximum over the past three months. According to Glassnode analysts, the average volume of coin inflows to centralized exchanges is now hovering around 1755 BTC.
All this is happening against the backdrop of a rapid fall in the price of the coin: BTC set a new local low at $29,730 on May 10. This is the lowest result in 2022 and is more than 54% below the all-time high. The pressure on the market is exerted by the coin holders themselves, who, due to panic, are ready to get rid of them even at a loss. Crypto Fear & Greed Index has fallen to 10 points out of 100 possible, firmly entrenching itself in the Extreme Fear zone.

- The next few quarters will be volatile for the market due to the negative situation on Wall Street, which will jeopardize the support levels of $30,000 for bitcoin and $2,000 for ethereum. This point of view was expressed by Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz.
As of March 31, Galaxy Digital had $2.7 billion in assets under management, down 5% from its December 31 estimate. Galaxy Digital's net cumulative loss was $111.7 million for January-March, compared with a profit of $858.2 million for the same period last year. This is largely due to losses on digital assets.
“Until we reach a new equilibrium, digital assets will continue to trade in close correlation with the Nasdaq. My intuition tells me that there will still be a drawdown ahead, and this will occur in a very unstable, volatile and complex market,” Mike Novogratz explained. He warned that the negative scenario could be realized if the Nasdaq index fell below 11,000 (12,500 at the time of writing).

- ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood believes that the growing correlation between cryptocurrencies and traditional assets indicates that the bearish trend will end soon. The businesswoman opined that the depreciation of bitcoin along with the traditional market is a temporary phenomenon: “Cryptocurrency is a new asset class that should not follow the Nasdaq, but that is what is happening. We are currently in a bearish trend where all assets are moving in the same way and we are seeing one market after another capitulate, but cryptocurrencies may be close to completing it.”
The head of ARK Invest believes that the cryptocurrency market will grow exponentially as traditional assets collapse. “The current recession in the stock and bond markets, commodities and cryptocurrency markets is causing negative sentiment among investors. But look at our research… I can’t even tell you how confident we are that our products will change the world and are already on an exponential growth trajectory.” According to Wood, blockchain is in a technology sector that will grow more than 20 times in the next seven to eight years.

- The first cryptocurrency can be very successful, but it can also fail, so betting solely on it is risky. This opinion was expressed by a veteran of the bitcoin industry, a 2020 US presidential candidate, billionaire Brock Pierce in an interview with Fox Business. “Bitcoin could drop to zero. This is a binary result. Either there will be $1 million per BTC, or zero,” he said.
Pierce believes that the current “cryptocurrency landscape” is very similar to the history of the tech companies' bubble. “The situation is very similar to 1999. The market is now in the same phase. So what happened then? After the dot-com bubble, eBay, Amazon and other interesting companies appeared, but a lot of businesses went bankrupt. But this does not mean that digital assets are unrealistic and will not play an important role in our collective future,” the billionaire said.
Pierce admitted that he diversified his portfolio, primarily through ethereum. He also placed a “nine zeros” bet on EOS, converting all of his Block.one shares into cryptocurrency.

- Self-proclaimed creator of the main cryptocurrency, Australian computer scientist Craig Wright has sued cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. This was reported by the law firm Ontier. He claims that these platforms misrepresent information by offering Bitcoin Core asset to customers under the guise of Bitcoin. According to Wright, the only digital asset “that remains true to the original bitcoin protocol” is Bitcoin Satoshi Vision.
“These and other exchanges have encouraged investors and consumers to trade and invest in Bitcoin Core, passing off this asset as bitcoin, despite it being created in 2017 as a software implementation that is different from the bitcoin protocol established by Dr. Wright when creating the electronic money system more than 13 years ago,” Ontier said in a statement.
Recall that Craig Wright himself claims that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious inventor of bitcoin. According to Wright, he helped create the first cryptocurrency with his friend, the late computer security expert Dave Kleiman.

- BTC is a good insurance against inflation, but not a full-fledged alternative to gold. This position was expressed by the founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio. The billionaire pointed to the obstacles to making bitcoin a reserve asset: “Transactions can be traced. They can be controlled, canceled and made illegal.” At the same time, the businessman expressed optimism about the prospects for the digital industry in the next ten years.

- Bank Of America, on the contrary, questioned bitcoin as a means of escape from inflation. The first cryptocurrency correlates well in its price behavior with the dynamics of the stock market since July 2021. Bitcoin's correlation with the S&P 500 hit an all-time high on January 31. The new all-time high was also close in correlation with the Nasdaq 100. In contrast, the price relationship between bitcoin and gold has been gradually weakening since 2021 and has turned negative in the last two months. The bank’s specialists emphasized that this trend “became obvious”, so bitcoin is not a full-fledged replacement for gold.

- The crypto community celebrated another mini-anniversary on May 5: bitcoin has overcome exactly half of the way to its next halving. It happened on block 735,000. Halving is reducing mining rewards by half. The event takes place every 210,000 blocks, or approximately every four years. At the same time, the rules of this procedure are written in the cryptocurrency code, which means that it is impossible to influence it without the consent of the majority of blockchain users. There are a little less than 105 thousand blocks left until the next such event.
Halving cycles are one of the main mechanisms of the bitcoin network, which involves halving the BTC reward for miners. Accordingly, the issue of bitcoins is also halved since miners' rewards are the only source of issuing new coins.
From the inception of bitcoin to the first halving, miners were rewarded with 50 BTC per block. Then the amount in bitcoins was reduced to 25 BTC, and in the next cycle to 12.5 BTC. Currently, miners receive 6.25 BTC for mining a block.
The halving date can be predicted to within a couple of days, because the block production time fluctuates around 10 minutes. The previous halving took place on May 11, 2020, and the next one will take place approximately in April 2024.
Halvings are considered very important events for another reason: as observations show, the explosive growth in the price of BTC is associated with them. So, before the first halving, BTC cost about $127, before the second, its price rose to $758, and before the third, to $10,943.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

Forex and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for May 16 - 20, 2022​

EUR/USD: On the Way to 1.0000

The dollar continues to rise, while the EUR/USD pair continues to fall. The DXY dollar index crept close to 104.9 on Thursday, May 12. The last time it climbed this high was 20 years ago. The pair found the bottom at the level of 1.0349, in the area of the lows of December 2016 - January 2017. A little more, and following DXY, it will get to where it traded 20 years ago. And there, parity 1:1 is just a stone's throw away.

The reason for the next strengthening of the US currency was, as usual, two factors: the recovery of the labor market and the growth of inflation. It is these factors that determine the pace of tightening monetary policy by the Fed.

According to the forecast, US jobless claims should have shown a slight increase. But the actual data, released on Thursday May 12, showed that the situation in the labor market is much better than expected. The number of initial requests has grown, but not by 3K, as predicted, but only by 1K. The number of repeated requests, instead of increasing by 3K, decreased by as much as 44K.

A day earlier, on May 11, inflation data appeared. The core consumer price index in the US increased by 0.3% in April and amounted to 0.6%. This growth is much less than the 1.2% increase in March. But this does not mean at all that inflation in the country has reached a peak and will only decrease further. Not at all. Oil prices remain above $100 a barrel, pushing up the cost of goods, transportation costs and household spending. New cars increased in price by 1.1% in April (only by 0.2% in March), while airfare prices rose by 18.6% over the month, showing the largest increase in 60 years. In addition, with a high degree of probability, a series of lockdowns in China due to a new wave of coronavirus will lead to problems with logistics and commodity exchange, which will not help reduce inflation either.

The combination of these factors suggests that the US Federal Reserve is unlikely to change its plans to tighten monetary policy: to reduce the balance sheet and raise rates. Following the head of the regulator Jerome Powell, his colleagues in the FOMC - the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Loretta Mester and the head of the New York Fed John Williams supported the intention to raise the federal funds rate by 0.5% at each of the two upcoming meetings, bringing it to 2.0%.

As for their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic, the ECB's key figures advocating a start to raise interest rates are still in the minority. Most members of the Board of Governors of the Bank are still convinced that the increase in inflation in the Eurozone is a temporary phenomenon, caused primarily by rising energy prices due to sanctions against Russia, which invaded Ukraine.

As a result, a powerful divergence between the clearly hawkish position of the US Fed and the indistinctly dovish position of the ECB continues to push the EUR/USD pair down, forcing new multi-year lows.

At the moment, analysts' voices are divided as follows: 70% of analysts are confident that the dollar will continue to strengthen, the remaining 30% are waiting for the pair's correction to the north. At the same time, when switching from a weekly to a monthly forecast, the number of those voting for the growth of the pair increases to 80%. All 100% of the indicators on D1 side with the dollar, after another fall of the pair. However, 20% of oscillators are in the oversold zone. The nearest resistance is located in the zone of 1.0420, the next target of the bulls on EUR/USD is a return to the zone of 1.0480-1.0580. If successful, they will then try to break through the resistance at 1.0640 and rise to the zone of 1.0750-1.0800. For the bears, the number 1 task is to update the May 13 low of 1.0350, after which they will storm the 2017 low of 1.0340, below are only the support of 20 years ago.

As for the calendar for the coming week, we recommend paying attention to the publication of data on prices and volumes of retail sales in the US on Tuesday, May 17. The speeches of the heads of the ECB Christine Lagarde and of the Fed Jerome Powell are expected on the same day. The Eurozone Consumer Price Index will be known on Wednesday, May 18, and data on manufacturing activity and the state of the labor market in the United States will be received on Thursday, May 19.

GBP/USD: GBP Rate Hike Is Possible, But Not Obvious

As mentioned above, the DXY dollar index has reached 20-year highs. According to experts, it has risen by 5.1% over the past 4 weeks. At the same time, the GBP/USD pair fell 7.4%, outperforming the average by 2.3%. However, not everything is so bad for the British currency.

The Bank of England predicted a rise in inflation from the current 7.0% (30-year high) to 10.25% at its meeting on May 05. And although the regulator left the forecast for GDP growth for the current year unchanged (+3.75%), it expects a recession starting from the Q4. The British Central Bank expects a 0.25% reduction in GDP in 2023 instead of the previously planned growth of 1.25%. According to the new forecast, GDP will grow not by 1.0%, but by only 0.25% in 2024.

This scenario, of course, cannot be called optimistic. However, a week later, on May 12, statistics showed that the country's GDP in the Q1 rose by 8.7% year-on-year, seriously exceeding the previous figure of 6.6%. This dynamics gives investors hope that the regulator will not stop at the current interest rate of 1.0%, and like the Fed, it will go on further raising it in order to fight inflation. And this, in turn, will support the British currency. Or at least keep it from sliding further down.

GBP/USD hit a weekly low at 1.2154, with the last chord at 1.2240. In case of further correction to the north, the pair will have to overcome the resistance in the zone 1.2300-1.2330, then there are zones 1.2400, 1.2470-1.2570, 1.2600-1.2635, 1.2700-1.2750, 1.2800-1.2835 and 1.2975-1.3000. When moving south, the first support will be the level of 1.2200, then 1.2154-1.2164 and 1.2075. A strong point of support for the pair is at the psychologically important level of 1.2000. 85% of experts vote for further weakening of the British currency, 15% expect a rebound upwards. And here it should be noted that when switching to forecasting until the end of the June, the number of the pair's growth supporters increases to 75%. There is still a total advantage of the red ones among the indicators on D1: 100% among trend indicators and 90% among oscillators look down. The remaining 10% among the latter have turned north.

As for the events of the upcoming week concerning the economy of the United Kingdom, we can highlight the publication of data on unemployment and wages in the country on Tuesday May 17. The new value of the Consumer Price Index will become known on Wednesday, May 18, and retail sales in the UK for April at the end of the working week, on Friday, May 20.

USD/JPY: From Return on Capital to Its Safety

The Japanese yen performed better last week than its "colleagues", the euro and the British pound. As most experts expected, the bulls tried to renew the April 28 high at 131.24. However, having risen only 10 pips higher to 131.34, they gave up, and the USD/JPY pair flew down, finding support only at 127.51. Undoubtedly, the current volatility of the pair is impressive: the weekly trading range was 383 points. This is despite the fact that it hovered around 150 points on average in the Q4 2021 - the Q1 2022. The finish of the last week took place in the central zone of the indicated range, at the level of 129.30.

Barring volatility during the coronavirus pandemic, the USD/JPY drop on Thursday May 12 was the biggest one-day swing since 2010. The strengthening of the Japanese currency, according to a number of experts, was due to the increased craving of investors for the most risk-free assets. Up to this point, the dollar has risen on the back of rising interest rates and higher yields on 10-year US Treasury bills. However, if investors continue to prefer capital preservation over returns, USD/JPY will continue to fall.

The yen was also strengthened by the expectation of changes in the policy of the Bank of Japan. Many investors, especially foreign ones, are expecting that, despite the regulator's assurances of commitment to an ultra-soft monetary policy, it may still go for an increase in interest rates. Moreover, there have already been such precedents, albeit in the opposite direction. Markets remember 2016, when the head of the Central Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, first denied the possibility of introducing negative rates categorically, and then suddenly decided to take such a step.

At the moment, experts' forecasts look as uncertain as the pair's quotes. 40% vote for its growth, 50% are in favor of the fall of the pair and the remaining 10% have taken a neutral position. There is a similar discord among the indicators on D1. As for trend indicators, 65% are green, 35% are red. The oscillators have 40% on the green side, 25% on the red side, and 35% hve turned neutral gray. The nearest support is located at 128.60, followed by zones and levels at 128.00, 127.50, 127.00, 126.30-126.75, 126.00 and 125.00. The goal of the bulls is to rise above the 130.00 horizon and renew the May 05 high at 131.34. The January 1, 2002 high of 135.19 is seen as the final goal.

Data on Japan's GDP for the Q1 of this year will be published next week, on Wednesday, May 18. It is expected that this indicator will decrease by 0.4% from the previous value of 1.1%.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: "$1 Million per BTC, or Zero"

If you read the headlines of the last week, you get the strong impression that the cryptocurrencies have only a few months left to live, if not days. “Crypto Market Massacre”, “Bitcoin Requiem”, “Crypto Bubble Burst” are just some of them. But is it all that scary?

Indeed, the market suffers very serious losses. Bitcoin has lost about 45% of its value since the end of March, hitting $26,580 on May 12. Most other coins feel even worse. As has been said many times, the cause of panic is the global drop in investor risk appetite. The crypto market only follows in the wake of the stock market: the correlation between digital asset quotes and stock indices S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq is at its maximum.

The tightening of the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve, new outbreaks of coronavirus in China, fears about the future of the EU economy: all this has led investors to prefer the dollar over risky assets. An additional driver is rising yields on 10-year US Treasury bonds. This figure has almost doubled since March and rose over 3%: to the highest level since 2018, exceeding the returns of most sectors of the US stock market.

In addition to global factors, the collapse of the third largest stablecoin in terms of capitalization, UST, put additional pressure on the crypto market. It is believed that stablecoins serve to facilitate investment transactions and should be pegged to the real dollar in a ratio of 1:1. The price of UST immediately collapsed to $0.64, casting doubt on the ability of the Terra team to maintain its rate. Against the backdrop of problems with UST, the native Terra LUNA token also went down, losing more than 90% of its price. It cost about $120 back in April, but you can buy it for $5 now. And here it must be borne in mind that the Terra blockchain protocol is a fairly large project that was in the TOP-10 in terms of market capitalization.

The fate of the centralized stablecoin Tether with a capitalization of $82 billion causes some concern as well. An audit of this project conducted in 2021 showed that instead of dollars, which should provide a reserve for the project, there are a lot of securities in the accounts. Against this background, the sale of USDT has intensified: its capitalization has decreased by $1.4 billion in recent days.

The total capitalization of the crypto market continues to fall. At the time of writing this review, Friday evening, May 13, it is at $1.290 trillion ($1.657 trillion a week ago). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has fallen from 22 to 10 points out of 100, firmly entrenched in the Extreme Fear zone. The BTC/USD pair, after a slight upward rebound, is trading around $30.150. The low of the week, as already mentioned, was fixed at $26.580. The last time the pair was so low was in December 2020.

The number of "whales" among bitcoin holders, whose capital exceeds the bar of 1000 BTC, is rapidly declining. This figure has already reached its lows since the beginning of the year. At the same time, the volume of cryptocurrency on the exchanges, on the contrary, is at its maximum over the past three months. According to Glassnode analysts, the average volume of coin inflows to centralized exchanges is now hovering around 1755 BTC.

Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz expressed doubt that the bulls will be able to defend the $30,000 support levels for bitcoin and $2,000 for ethereum. “Until we reach a new equilibrium,” he wrote, “digital assets will continue to trade in close correlation with the Nasdaq. Intuition tells us that there will still be a drawdown ahead, and this will occur in a very unstable, volatile and complex market.” Mike Novogratz warned that the negative scenario could materialize if the Nasdaq index falls below 11,000 (it hit 11,688 on May 12).

Gold apologist, billionaire Peter Schiff, predicted the main cryptocurrency to collapse below $10,000. And another billionaire veteran of the bitcoin industry, 2020 US presidential candidate Brock Pierce said in an interview with Fox Business that it can be very successful, but it can also fail. “Bitcoin could drop to zero. Here is the binary result. Either there will be $1 million per BTC, or zero,” he said.

Pierce believes that the current “cryptocurrency landscape” is very similar to the history of the tech companies' bubble. “The situation is very similar to 1999. The market is now in the same phase. So what happened then? After the dot-com bubble, eBay, Amazon and other interesting companies appeared, but a lot of businesses went bankrupt. But this does not mean that digital assets are unrealistic and will not play an important role in our collective future,” the billionaire said. Pierce admitted that he diversified his portfolio, primarily through Ethereum. He also placed a “nine zeros” bet on EOS, converting all of his Block.one shares into cryptocurrency.

Unlike other influencers, ARK Invest CEO Katherine Wood continues to express sustained optimism and believes that the growing correlation between cryptocurrencies and traditional assets indicates that the bearish trend will end soon. The businesswoman opined that the depreciation of bitcoin along with the traditional market is a temporary phenomenon: “Cryptocurrency is a new asset class that should not follow the Nasdaq, but that is what is happening. We are currently in a bearish trend where all assets are moving in the same way and we are seeing one market after another capitulate, but cryptocurrencies may be close to completing it.”

The head of ARK Invest believes that the cryptocurrency market will grow exponentially as traditional assets collapse. “The current recession in the stock and bond markets, commodities and cryptocurrency markets is causing negative sentiment among investors. But look at our research… I can’t even tell you how confident we are that our products will change the world and are already on an exponential growth trajectory.” According to Wood, blockchain is in a technology sector that will grow more than 20 times in the next seven to eight years.

Another hope for investors is that bitcoin is already halfway to its next halving. It happened at block number 735,000 on May 05. This event occurs every 210 thousand blocks, or approximately once every four years, with a little less than 105 thousand blocks left until the next one. The halving date can be predicted to within a couple of days, because the block production time fluctuates around 10 minutes. The previous halving took place on May 11, 2020, and the next one will take place approximately in April 2024.

Halving cycles are one of the main mechanisms of the bitcoin network, which involves halving the BTC reward for miners. Accordingly, the issue of bitcoins is also halved, since miners' rewards are the only source of issuing new coins. From the inception of bitcoin to the first halving, miners were rewarded with 50 BTC per block. Then the amount in bitcoins was reduced to 25 BTC, and in the next cycle to 12.5 BTC. Currently, miners receive 6.25 BTC for mining a block.

And if miners suffer losses due to halving, investors, on the contrary, earn. As observations show, before the first halving, BTC cost about $127, before the second, its price rose to $758, and before the third, to $10,943. It remains to wait for not so long, less than two years, to find out whether there will be a similar explosive rise in the price of BTC in 2024.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

CryptoNews of the Week

- Due to the speculative nature of cryptocurrencies, investors need more protection, otherwise they may lose confidence in the markets. This was stated by the head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler. As a rule, buyers of cryptocurrencies do not receive the amount of information that is typical for other asset classes, the official said. For example, this applies to the trading platforms they use or whether users actually own funds in their digital wallets.
According to him, cryptocurrency markets are considered decentralized, but in reality, most of the activity takes place on a few large trading platforms. Regarding crypto platforms, he recalled the need to comply with the basic principles of the market, such as “fighting fraud, countering manipulation and insider practices, ensuring a real, not fictitious, order book.” Gensler noted that the SEC will continue to work to cover all types of cryptocurrencies with supervision. “There is a lot to be done here, and investors are not so well protected so far,” he concluded.

- FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried questioned bitcoin's ability to become a popular payment system due to the inefficiency and high environmental costs of its blockchain. This is reported by the Financial Times. The top manager pointed out that it is not possible to scale the network “to millions of transactions” [per second]. “Blockchain must be extremely efficient, lightweight and have low energy costs. We should not scale bitcoin to such an extent that the consumption of electricity by miners has increased a hundred times,” he explained. The CEO of FTX, who is already being called the “new Zuckerberg”, stressed that the first cryptocurrency can remain in the status of an asset, a commodity and a store of value.

- Rich Dad Poor Dad bestselling author and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki called the bitcoin crash “great news” and predicted a test of the $17,000 level. “As I said earlier, I expect bitcoin to fall to $20,000. Then we will wait for the bottom test, which may be $17,000. Once that happens, I'll go big. Crises are the best time to get rich,” he said.
Earlier, Robert Kiyosaki explained sarcastically why he is confident in the long-term success of digital gold: “Bitcoin will win because America is led by three puppets.” He ranked US President Joe Biden, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell among them.

- Crypto strategist known as DonAlt believes that after breaking the key psychological support area of $30,000, Bitcoin is ready to show a serious move. “Over the next 3 months, we will either see the capitulation that everyone is waiting for, or bitcoin will close the range and start moving up to $58,000,” the expert writes. – In my opinion, the probability of going down is higher. According to my calculations, the next support is at $14,000, after which a recovery of more than 2 times to the high of the range is possible.”
DonAlt noted that the current structure of the bitcoin market may hint that the bottom has already been reached. However, he fears the strong correlation of BTC with the stock market and the possibility of a collapse in the S&P 500 index.
The trader known as Rekt Capital agreed with the opinion that bitcoin is expected to fall further. The specialist believes that the coin needs to lose another 25% of its value before the expected local minimum.

- One of the main critics of bitcoin, president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. Peter Schiff believes that the cryptocurrency has an opportunity for a further strong fall. The businessman drew attention to the fact that bitcoin has lost an important support level near $33,000. And the cryptocurrency will have to fall to $8,000 to touch the next level. “The support line has been broken. There is a high probability of movement to the lower support line. The chart shows two patterns at once: a double top and a head-shoulders pattern. This is an ominous combination. We have a long way down,” Peter Schiff wrote on his blog.

- But an analyst nicknamed Pentoshi expects a bitcoin rally soon, as the situation, in his opinion, is in favor of the bulls. According to Pentoshi, the bears are making serious efforts to lower the price of bitcoin, but they are not succeeding in achieving the desired result. “A lot of coins change hands with a lot of effort. But do the sellers receive appropriate remuneration? It doesn't look like it.
As an example, he looked at an inverted chart of bitcoin, which shows extremely high trading volume, coupled with a small exchange rate movement. As Pentoshi believes, the failure of the bears to depreciate BTC despite strong selling pressure suggests that the momentum is about to turn in favor of the bulls.

- During a discussion of the impact of cryptocurrencies on the country's economy, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said that they could lead to dollarization, as well as have a negative impact on the banking system. Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das stated that "this seriously undermines the RBI's ability to control the country's monetary policy."
The official fears that cryptocurrencies can become a medium of exchange and replace the national currency in financial transactions both domestically and abroad. “Almost all cryptocurrencies are denominated in dollars and are issued by foreign individuals. This, in the end, can lead to the dollarization of part of our economy, which is contrary to the sovereign interests of the country,” Shaktikanta Das said.
According to various estimates, there are from 15 to 20 million cryptocurrency investors in India with a total volume of crypto assets of about $5.34 billion.

- The cryptocurrency market has recently been actively selling coins, as investors get rid of risky assets amid global economic turmoil. Cryptocurrency billionaires have suffered the most.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's net worth has decreased from $13.7 billion to $2.2 billion. This was not only due to the fall in digital asset prices, but also due to the fall in Coinbase shares, the price of which fell by more than 80%.¬ The capital of the CEO of the FTX crypto exchange Sam Bankman-Fried has halved and now stands at $11.3 billion. The well-known founders of the Gemini cryptocurrency trading platform, the brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, have individually lost more than $2 billion, which is equivalent to almost 40% of their total fortune.

- American billionaire investor Bill Miller announced in January that half of his capital was invested in the largest cryptocurrency by capitalization. And now some of his coins were sold on a margin call.
In an interview with CNBC, the head of Miller Value Partners said he still remains bullish for the long term. According to him, for the first time he bought an asset in the range of $200-300 and during this time he went through at least three drops in BTC by more than 80%. Despite this, he still views bitcoin as an insurance policy against financial disaster.

- The US Department of State, the Treasury Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have issued a joint warning stating that North Korean IT professionals are trying to get jobs in cryptocurrency projects by posing as citizens of other countries. The authorities have noticed that coders from the DPRK pretend to be citizens of the United States very often.
The statement emphasizes that many of them receive income that contributes to the creation of weapons of mass destruction and the military buildup of North Korea in circumvention of the sanctions imposed on it. In addition, the document says that for the same purpose, some IT professionals from the DPRK have developed virtual currency exchangers or have created analytical tools and applications for cryptocurrency traders.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

Forex and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for May 23 - 27, 2022​

EUR/USD: Growth of the Pair as a Result of DXY Correction

The DXY dollar index hit a multi-year high of 105.05 on Friday, May 13 after a six-week rise. The last time it climbed this high was 20 years ago. However, a reversal followed, and the DXY was below the 103.00 horizon on May 19-20. According to a number of analysts, such a drop is more likely the result of a technical correction, and not a consequence of changes in fundamental factors. The latter still remain on the side of the American currency. However, there are already some alarming signals here, as the sharp tightening of the Fed's monetary policy increases concerns about the growth of the US economy and increases the likelihood of a recession.

But, once again, the fundamental factors are still on the side of the dollar. Thus, data on retail sales in the US released on May 17 showed an increase in consumer activity in April by 0.9%, which is higher than the forecast of 0.7%. Industrial production exceeded the forecast as well: it grew by 1.1% instead of the expected 0.5%.

Last week, the head of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell once again confirmed his intention to raise the key rate by 0.5% at the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meetings in June and July. Recall that the US regulator has already raised the rate twice this year. This, of course, led to an increase in costs for various types of loans not only for industry, but also for the population, including mortgage lending, consumer loans, interest on credit cards etc.

However, on Tuesday May 17, Jerome Powell stated unequivocally that the Fed would continue to tighten and back off from aggressive rate hikes only when it received "clear and compelling evidence" of a slowdown in inflation. And if the rate of inflation decline does not suit the Central Bank, it may not limit itself to a rate of 3.0%, but increase it to 4.0% within 12-15 months. That will give the dollar additional advantages over other currencies in the DXY basket, including the euro.

Unlike the US economy, investors are much more concerned about the prospects for the European economy. This concern is primarily due to the strong dependence of the European Union on Russian energy resources. On Monday, May 16, EU countries started negotiations on the sixth package of sanctions against Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine. It is known that we are talking, among other things, about the introduction of an embargo on the purchase of Russian oil and gas. It is not yet clear whether such an embargo will be total or partial, when it will be introduced and what exceptions there will be, but it is already clear that it will create serious problems not only for the Russian, but also for the European economy. And this cannot but cause concern for investors.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen added additional uncertainty to this complex situation. She stated that the G7 countries are discussing the idea of establishing the maximum possible duties on energy from Russia. On the one hand, it makes no sense to impose an embargo on their supplies in this case. But on the other hand, this will hit hard on the pockets of European consumers who want to avoid energy hunger.

The situation with inflation in the Eurozone remains unclear. According to data published on Wednesday May 18, it remains at a record level of 7.4%, that is, 3.7 times the ECB's target level of 2.0%. The head of the Central Bank of Finland, Olli Rehn, said that in such a situation, members of the ECB Governing Council agree on the need for a “fairly quick” move away from negative interest rates. Recall that the deposit rate in the euro area is now minus 0.5%, and has been negative for 8 years, since 2014. However, "fairly quick" exit is a very vague wording, in contrast to the specific decision of the US Federal Reserve to raise the dollar rate by another 1.0% in the next two months.

This divergence between the specifically hawkish monetary policy of the Fed and the vaguely dovish ECB suggests that the US currency will continue to strengthen its position. Although the opposite happened last week: the dollar lost about 150 points to the euro from May 16 to May 20 and the EUR/USD pair ended the trading session at 1.0557. However, according to some experts, what happened is a consequence of the general correction of the DXY index and fits into the medium-term downtrend of the pair.

At the time of writing, on the evening of May 20, the opinions of experts are divided as follows: 45% of analysts are sure that the EUR/USD pair will return to the movement to the south, the same number is waiting for the continuation of the correction to the north, and the remaining 10% have taken a neutral position. There is a certain discrepancy in the readings of indicators on D1 caused by a correction. Among the trend indicators, 40% side with the reds, 60% side with the greens. The oscillators have a clearer picture: 70% are colored green, 20% red and 10% neutral gray. The nearest resistance is located in the zone 1.0600, if successful, they will try to break through the resistance 1.0640 and rise to the zone 1.0750-1.0800. For the bears, task number 1 is to break through the support in the 1.0500 area, then 1.0460-1.0480, and then update the May 13 low at 1.0350. If successful, they will move on to storm the 2017 low of 1.0340, there is only support from 20 years ago below.

As for the calendar for the coming week, it will be useful to pay attention to the publication of data on business activity (Markit) in Germany and the Eurozone as a whole on Tuesday, May 24. US orders for capital and durable goods will be released on Wednesday. The minutes of the last FOMC meeting of the Fed will be published on the same day, and preliminary US GDP indicators for the Q1 2022 will be known on Thursday, May 26.

GBP/USD: Inflation Continues to Rise

Of course, the dynamics of the GBP/USD pair was dominated by what happened to the DXY dollar index last week. However, certain adjustments were also made by specific factors related to the economy of the United Kingdom.

The Bank of England published a forecast about two months ago that inflation should have peaked in April. The data published on Wednesday, May 18, confirmed this forecast, with the exception of one very big “but”. The regulator predicted that the peak would be reached at 7.2%, but it turned out to be 9.0%, which is the highest over the past 40 years. And in this case, to paraphrase the great English playwright William Shakespeare, it is time to exclaim: “Is this a peak or not a peak? That's the question!". Apparently, there is no talk of any slowdown in inflation yet, and it is precisely this that is the main “toothache” of the UK economy.

GBP/USD hit 1.2524 at a weekly high. Two pieces of news kept the pound from weakening. First, according to the UK Office for National Statistics, retail sales in the country unexpectedly rose by 1.4% in April, while the market expected a fall of 0.2%. And in addition, the British currency was supported by the chief economist of the Bank of England Hugh Pill, who said that the regulator has yet to continue tightening monetary policy, as bullish risks for inflation still prevail, and it is projected to rise to double digits in 2022.

As a result, the pair ended the five-day period at 1.2490 where it traded in late April - early May, and where it has already been in 2016, 2019, and 2020. Will it continue to fall? 20% of experts answered this question positively, 25% answered negatively. The majority (55%), not knowing how to react to the words of the chief economist of the Central Bank, shrugged their shoulders. As for the indicators on D1, then, as in the case of EUR/USD , their opinions are divided. Among the trend indicators, 50% point to the growth of the pair, exactly the same number points to the fall, among the oscillators the balance of forces is somewhat different: only 20% are looking south, 80% are looking north, although a quarter of them are already in the overbought zone. Supports are located at 1.2435, 1.2400, 1.2370, 1.2300, 1.2200, then 1.2154-1.2164 and 1.2075. A strong point of support for the pair is at the psychologically important level of 1.2000. In case of further correction to the north, the pair will have to overcome the resistance in the zone 1.2500-1.2525, then there are zones 1.2600-1.2635, 1.2700-1.2750, 1.2800-1.2835 and 1.2975-1.3000.

UK economic developments in the coming week include a speech by Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on Monday May 23 and the release of the PMI Composite and Markit Manufacturing and Services PMIs on Tuesday May 24.

USD/JPY: Why the Yen Is Strengthening

According to officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), "in general, the depreciation of the yen is helping Japan." The same could be repeatedly heard from the leaders of the Bank of Japan. The IMF also believes that the control over the yield curve applied by the Japanese regulator is quite effective, and the dynamics of the yen "are in line with medium-term fundamentals."

However, contrary to the statements of high officials, we have seen not weakening, but strengthening of the Japanese currency over the past two weeks. And on May 20, it is exactly where it was on April 20: at the level of 127.85, without having updated the maximum of May 09 at 131.34. According to a number of experts, the strengthening of the Japanese currency was due to the increased craving of investors for the most risk-free assets. However, this is not the only reason.

Inflation in the country continues to grow, which causes discontent among the population. The rise in consumer prices is recorded for the eighth month in a row. In April, they increased by 2.5% compared to the same month a year earlier, showing the highest growth rate since October 2014. As noted by Dow Jones, inflation has exceeded the 2.0% mark for the first time since September 2008, and this is without taking into account the effect of the consumption tax increase. It was 1.2% in March. Naturally, all this causes discontent among the citizens of the country, to which politicians are already actively reacting. But at some point, there should be a reaction from the Central Bank of Japan. Many investors, especially foreign ones, expect that, despite the regulator's assurances of its commitment to an ultra-soft monetary policy, it will still be forced to increase the interest rate. And, apparently, it is this expectation that provides the yen with additional support.

At the moment, 55% of analysts vote for the yen to continue to strengthen and USD/JPY to continue moving south, 40% vote for the resumption of the uptrend to the north, and 5% expect movement in the sideways. At the same time, supporters of technical analysis pay attention to the fact that a classic figure has formed on the chart: a "double top" (or "head - shoulders"). Among the indicators on D1, the alignment of forces is as follows. Oscillators have 80% red, 10% green, and 10% neutral gray. Among trend indicators, the parity is 50% to 50%. The nearest support is located at 127.50, followed by zones and levels at 127.00, 126.30-126.75, 126.00 and 125.00. The goal of the bulls is to rise above the horizon of 128.00, then overcome the resistances of 129.00, 129.60, 130.00, 130.50 and renew the high of May 09 at 131.34. The high of January 01, 2002, 135.19, is seen as the ultimate goal.

Of the upcoming week's events, one can pay attention to the speech of the Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Wednesday, May 25, although it is unlikely to bring any surprises and at least somehow affect market sentiment. But what if something does happen? Markets remember 2016, when Haruhiko Kuroda first categorically denied the possibility of changing rates, and then suddenly decided to take such a step…

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: End of the Digital Gold Rush?

The BTC/USD bulls have been desperately trying to hold the line in the $30,000 zone since May 11. The struggle took place in the $28,650-31,000 zone all last week. And even though the S&P500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq stock indices rebounded on May 18, putting additional pressure on bitcoin, it continued to resist.

In general, decoupling bitcoin from stock indices, primarily from the S&P500, is the dream of many supporters of the first cryptocurrency. On the other hand, these same people dream that as many institutions as possible will come to the crypto market, and that bitcoin, along with stocks, will take its rightful place in their investment portfolios. But in order to become a full-fledged participant in financial markets, a cryptocurrency must obey the rules and laws established on it. And if large investors get rid of risky assets, one should not expect that, by dumping shares of Microsoft, Apple or Amazon, they will invest the dollars received not in treasuries, but in bitcoin or ethereum.

Another dream is for bitcoin to establish itself as a store of value on par with physical gold. However, the concept of "digital gold" at the moment is nothing more than a compliment towards the first cryptocurrency. Or a marketing ploy to increase its value in the eyes of small investors. But the importance of the precious metal for humanity has been confirmed for thousands of years, while the history of bitcoin is not even 15 years old. And its value lies only in its limited emission and thirst for profit.

Back in 2010, BTC was worth 5 cents, and its price reached $69,000 at its peak in November 2021. It is clear that the prospect of quickly and easily turning $100 dollars into $138,000,000 attracted a huge mass of people willing to get rich quickly. So what happened in the last 10-12 years can be called the “Digital Gold Rush”, by analogy with the Gold Rush in the USA in the second half of the 19th century. But then many, instead of getting rich, on the contrary, lost their money. The same can be observed now: bitcoin, having fallen to $26.579 on May 12, updated the low of the current year and returned to the values of December 2020, having lost about 60% of its value in just 6 months.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's net worth has decreased from $13.7 billion to $2.2 billion. This was not only due to the fall in digital asset prices, but also due to the fall in Coinbase shares, the price of which fell by more than 80%. The capital of the CEO of the FTX crypto exchange Sam Bankman-Fried has halved and now stands at $11.3 billion. The well-known founders of the Gemini cryptocurrency trading platform, the brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, have individually lost more than $2 billion, which is equivalent to almost 40% of their total fortune. Well, what means of "savings and hedging" can we talk about in such a situation?

Another advantage of bitcoin that its proponents like to talk about is its decentralized nature and the anonymity of its holders. However, it seems that this is just a fake. The head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, explained that although cryptocurrency markets are considered decentralized, in reality, most of the activity takes place on a few large trading floors. Regulators and law enforcement officers are closely watching them. And the fact that the wallets belonging to the Russians were blocked after the imposition of sanctions against Russia, says a lot.

Finally, the fourth opportunity to raise the value of BTC is its widespread use as a means of payment. Although not everything is so smooth here. For example, Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of the FTX crypto exchange, has recently expressed doubts about the ability of bitcoin to become a popular payment system. The top manager pointed to the lack of the ability to scale the network "to millions of transactions" per second due to the inefficiency and high environmental costs of his blockchain.

Returning from wishful thinking to reality, we must state that the total capitalization of the crypto market continues to fall. At the time of writing this review, Friday evening, May 20, it is at $1.248 trillion ($1.290 trillion a week ago). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is firmly entrenched in the Extreme Fear zone and is at around 13 points. Moreover, it fell to 8 points on Tuesday, May 17, the lowest level since March 28, 2020. The BTC/USD pair is hardly kept in the "war zone", at the level of $29.325.

Gold advocate, president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. Peter Schiff believes that bitcoin has already lost an important support level near $33,000. And the cryptocurrency will have to fall to $8,000 to touch the next level. “The support line has been broken. There is a high probability of movement to the lower support line. The chart shows two patterns at once: a double top and a head-shoulders pattern. This is an ominous combination. We have a long way down,” this “gold bug” wrote in his blog.

Rich Dad Poor Dad bestselling author and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki called the bitcoin crash “great news” and predicted a test of the $17,000 level. “As I said earlier, I expect bitcoin to fall to $20,000. Then we will wait for the bottom test, which may be $17,000. Once that happens, I'll go big. Crises are the best time to get rich,” he said.

But according to the crypto strategist nicknamed DonAlt, the question of where bitcoin will move after breaking the key support area of $30,000, has not yet been resolved. “Over the next 3 months, we will either see the capitulation that everyone is waiting for, or bitcoin will close the range and start moving up to $58,000,” the expert writes. In his opinion, the probability of going down is higher, and the next support is at $14,000. DonAlt notes that the current structure of the bitcoin market may hint that the bottom has already been reached. However, he fears the strong correlation of BTC with the stock market and the possibility of a further collapse of the S&P500 index.

The trader known as Rekt Capital agreed with the opinion that bitcoin is expected to fall further. The specialist believes that the coin needs to lose another 25% of its value before the expected local minimum.

Analyst nicknamed Pentoshi, on the other hand, expects a bitcoin rally soon, as the situation, in his opinion, is in favour of the bulls. According to Pentoshi, the bears are making serious efforts to lower the price of bitcoin, but they are not succeeding in achieving the desired result. “A lot of coins change hands with a lot of effort. But do the sellers receive appropriate remuneration? It doesn't look like it.

As an example, he looked at an inverted chart of bitcoin, which shows extremely high trading volume, coupled with a small exchange rate movement. As Pentoshi believes, the failure of the bears to depreciate BTC despite strong selling pressure suggests that the momentum is about to turn in favor of the bulls.

American billionaire investor Bill Miller also looks optimistic. According to him, he survived at least three bitcoin drops by more than 80%. And despite the fact that some of his coins have been currently sold on a margin call, he remains bullish in the long term.

As follows from the above, there is no consensus among influencers and experts at the moment. What to do in such a situation? Of course, you can sit and wait with your hands down. Or you can, for example, engage in active trading. Moreover, trading on the CFD principle, you can earn both on the growth and fall of the crypto market. Moreover, you do not need to have a real cryptocurrency for this: in the NordFX brokerage company, in order to open a transaction of 1 bitcoin, you will only need $150, and $15 for a transaction of 1 ethereum. Why is this not a crypto life hack?


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

World Confederation of Businesses Presents NordFX with Business Excellence Award for the Second Time

For the second time, NordFX has received the BIZZ AWARDS, an award that the World Confederation of Businesses annually awards to companies that have achieved outstanding business success.

The World Confederation of Businesses (WORLDCOB) has been playing a leading role as an international business organization for over 15 years, promoting business development in over 130 countries and encouraging the growth of companies and entrepreneurs through THE BIZZ AWARDS. NordFX received its first such award in 2020, and now there is a new success.

“On behalf of the World Confederation of Businesses,” the organization's president, Jesus Moran, wrote in their letter, “we extend our most sincere congratulations to you and your team NORDFX, for being selected as a winner of of this important business excellence award.

Your company has been selected for consistently exceeding the evaluation criteria noted in our Business Excellence Questionnaires: Business Leadership, Quality of Products and Services, Management Systems, Innovation and Creativity, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Results Achieved. For this reason, we would like to extend our congratulations once more in recognition of this outstanding achievement. WORLDCOB wishes you to continue the excellent work your team is doing."


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

CryptoNews of the Week

- The collapse of LUNA and the general weakening of the market affected the expectations of crypto derivatives market participants. According to Glassnode, the ratio of open puts and calls in bitcoin has increased from 50% to 70%, indicating an increased desire of investors to secure positions from continued negative dynamics.
The largest open interest (OI) in call contracts with expiration at the end of July this year is concentrated around the $40,000 mark. However, participants give the greatest preference to put options, which will bring profit in case of price reduction to $25,000, $20,000 and $15,000. In other words, until the middle of the year, the market focuses on hedging risks and/or speculating on a further price reduction.
Optimists predominate over the longer distance. Contracts maturing at the end of the year have the most open positions in the range of $70,000 to $100,000. In the put option, the largest OI is concentrated between $25,000 and $30,000, that is, it is in the zone of current values.

- The rate of burning ethereum through EIP-1559 fell to a record low. 2,370 ETH was withdrawn from circulation Last week, which is 50% less than in early May. The share of coins not subjected to this procedure reached a record 81.6%, which has also put pressure on the price.

- Most Americans consider digital assets as an investment tool, not a means of payment. This is stated in the annual Fed report on the state of US households. According to the document, 12% of adult citizens of the country have owned or interacted with cryptocurrencies. But only 2% have used them for purchases, and only 1% have used them to send funds.

- Against the background of the increase in the key interest rate and the tightening of the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve, the price of bitcoin may fall below $8,000. Guggenheim Partners investment director Scott Minerd said this in an interview with CNBC. “When you “break through the $30,000 level, $8,000 is the ultimate bottom. So, I think we still have a lot of room to decline, especially with the Fed acting tough,” he said.
The investment director of the Guggenheim compared the situation in the crypto market to the dot-com bubble. According to him, most digital assets are “junk”, but bitcoin and ethereum will survive the crypto winter.
Minerd emphasized that the digital asset industry has not yet come to the right design for cryptocurrencies. In his opinion, the currency should store value, be a means of exchange and a unit of account. “There is nothing like that, they [cryptocurrencies] have not even come to a single basis,” he concluded.

- The PayPal payment company is making every effort to implement “all possible” integrations with blockchain and cryptocurrencies into its services. This was stated by PayPal's Vice President Richard Nash during the World Economic Forum in Davos. “We are looking to work with other [projects] to cover everything we can, whether it be the coins we have today in PayPal digital wallets, private digital currencies or CBDCs in the future,” Nash said.
The payments giant’s VP also hinted that he has also invested in crypto assets: “I have a lot of things that I work on at PayPal and I enjoy using the services myself, so I think it’s natural.”

- Unidentified people hacked into the Twitter account of Mike Winkelman, an artist known under the pseudonym Beeple, posting phishing links on it. Users were invited to a website purporting to be Beeple's partnership with Louis Vuitton fashion house.
Clicking on this link resulted in an unauthorized withdrawal of funds from the user's wallet. The cybercriminals got 135 ETH and 45 NFTs worth about $438,000. The hackers retained control of the artist's account for approximately five hours before he managed to get it back.

- The crypto strategist aka Credible believes that, despite the general bearish mood in the markets, BTC is ready to take off. According to him, bitcoin has been in a bull market for the last decade, and the bear markets of 2014 and 2018 became periods of correction: “After the peaks of 2013 and 2017, there were major bear markets and it took 3 years to return to the highs. The current corrections are somewhat smaller, and this will be proven when BTC soars to new all-time highs in a few months.”
Credible uses the Elliott wave theory for technical analysis, which predicts the behavior of the rate based on the psychology of the crowd, which manifests itself in the form of waves. This theory assumes that a bull market cycle goes through 5 impulse waves, with the asset correcting during the 2nd and 4th waves and rallying during the 1st, 3rd and 5th waves. In addition, each major wave consists of 5 smaller sub-waves.
According to the analyst, bitcoin is now in the middle of the main 5th wave that began at the start of 2019. In addition, BTC is currently still in the 5th sub-wave, which can push the asset to a new all-time high above $100,000. “I understand that my approach is controversial,” says Credible. “Most do not expect a new record high until the next halving in 2024, and I expect it sooner.”

- According to another crypto analyst nicknamed Rager, given the length of BTC’s bearish cycles in 2014 and 2018, the asset has a long way to go to the bottom, from 6 to 8 months. “If BTC is declining and rebounding from the 200-week moving average, as in past bearish cycles, then this is a good sign. There will be a decline of only 68% from the maximum, although it had reached 84% in the past. If we take the current realities, a pullback of 84% will lead to the rate of $11,000.”
Rager believes that the price of bitcoin will depend on the strength or weakness of the US stock market in the short term: “You should not look at the bitcoin chart, it is better to watch the chart of the S&P 500 index. There is limited upside potential for BTC right now, but it won’t get stronger until the stock markets turn around.”

- Rekt Capital, one of the most followed analysts on Twitter with over 300,000 followers, has warned that bitcoin could briefly drop 28% below its 200-week moving average. He explained that this SMA is playing the role of an ever-growing latest support. Bitcoin has fallen below this line in the past, but these periods of capitulation were very short-lived. The weekly candlestick has never closed below this SMA yet, but its shadows were as high as 28%. If this happens again now, the cryptocurrency rate will be at the level of $15,500. The 200-week moving average is currently in the $22,000 zone.

- Galaxy Digital CEO and bitcoin proponent Mike Novogratz believes that even despite a significant drop from their all-time highs, altcoins risk losing more than half of their value.
Novogratz defines the outlook for the entire financial market as bleak, which means that a further decline in crypto assets should be expected. However, despite the bearish macroeconomic background, the head of Galaxy Digital remains optimistic and believes in the recovery of the crypto market in the future: “Cryptocurrency is not going away. The number of new users is not decreasing, the pace of creating decentralized infrastructure is not slowing down, the GDP of projects in the metaverse is growing. The crypto community is resilient, it believes in innovation and believes that the markets still provide early entry opportunities.”

- The analytical company Santiment has published the data of its Weighted indicator, which calculates negative and positive comments on an asset in social networks. Based on this information, a kind of mood of the crypto community is determined. According to the readings of this instrument, bitcoin has already reached the global bottom and can be expected to rise in the coming weeks.
“History shows that prices most often rise when investor sentiment is low. Now is the moment when bitcoin has every chance of a limited strengthening,” analysts at Santiment believe.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

Forex and Cryptocurrency Forecast for May 30 - June 03, 2022​

EUR/USD: Fed's "Boring" FOMC Protocol

The DXY dollar index hit a multi-year high of 105.05 on Friday, May 13, after a six-week rise. The last time it climbed this high was 20 years ago. However, a reversal followed, and it was already at the level of 101.50 exactly two weeks later. Following the general trend, the EUR/USD pair has also been growing since May 13, reaching the height of 1.0764 on May 27. The euro has pushed the dollar by 415 points during this time. And this is not at all the European currency that did it, but the American one. More specifically, the US Federal Reserve.

The minutes of the last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting released on Wednesday May 25 did not bring any surprises. It had only what everyone already knew about. The content of the document simply confirmed the intention of the regulator to raise the refinancing rate by 0.5% at each of the next two meetings. Fed officials also unanimously approved a plan to start reducing the asset portfolio, which currently stands at $9 trillion, from June 1. The absence of any surprises in the FOMC protocol hurt the dollar, but it helped the shares: the stock indices S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq went straight up.

The Eurozone macroeconomic calendar remained almost empty last week. As for the statistics from the US, it came out rather multidirectional. Initial jobless claims for the week fell to 210K, which is less than the expected 215K. Orders for durable goods rose by 0.4%, indicating further growth in consumer activity, which is the main driver of economic growth. However, on the other hand, US GDP for the Q1 was revised down to negative -1.5%, which is worse than both the previous estimate of -1.3% and the forecast of -1.4%.

Among medium-term factors, the aggressive policy of the US Central Bank continues to play on the side of the dollar. Its head, Jerome Powell, has repeatedly confirmed his intention to raise interest rates in order to curb inflation and prevent the economy from overheating. US annual inflation (CPI) hit 8.3% in April, more than four times the target of 2%. At the same time, according to analysts, a record rise in energy prices will continue to push inflation further upward in the coming months. And this, in turn, may push the Fed to further tighten monetary policy.

The US currency also continues to be supported by its status as a protective asset. As the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine is expected to escalate, demand for it will continue to grow, as investors are concerned about the threat of stagflation in Europe. Rising tensions between China and Taiwan have increased craving for safe haven assets as well.

EUR/USD completed the past week at 1.0701. At the time of writing the review, on the evening of May 27, the voices of experts were divided as follows: 30% of analysts are sure that the pair will return to the movement to the south, 50% of analysts are waiting for the continuation of the ascent to the north, and the remaining 20% have taken a neutral position. There is no unity in the readings of the indicators on D1. Oscillators are 80% green, 10% red, and 10% neutral gray. At the same time, a quarter of the "green" is already in the overbought zone. There is parity among the trend indicators: 50% vote for the growth of the pair, 50% vote for its fall. The nearest resistance is located in zone 1.0750-1.0800. If successful, the bulls will try to break through the resistance of 1.0900-1.0945, then 1.1000 and 1.1050, after which they will meet resistance in the 1.1120-1.1137 zone. For the bears, task number 1 is to break through the support at 1.0640, then 1.0480-1.0500, and then update the May 13 low at 1.0350. If successful, they will move on to storm the 2017 low of 1.0340, there is only support from 20 years ago below.

A lot of statistics on consumer markets in Germany (May 30 and June 01) and the EU (May 31 and June 03) will be released this week. The publication on Wednesday, June 01 of the ISM business activity index in the US manufacturing sector is also noteworthy. On the same day, the ADP report on US non-farm employment will be published, and another piece of data from the US labor market will arrive on Friday, October 08, including such important indicators as the unemployment rate and the number of new non-farm payrolls (NFP).

GBP/USD: "Not Boring" Decision of the UK Government

The main factor behind the strengthening of the pound and the growth of the GBP/USD pair, as in the case of the euro, was the general weakening of the US currency. The two-week drop in the DXY dollar index was its worst losing streak since December 2021. However, unlike the euro, the British currency was helped by two more factors. The first is strong labor market data. The second is inflation in April, which peaked in four decades and gave investors hope for further tightening of monetary policy and higher interest rates by the Bank of England.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed his concern about the country's economic prospects last week. He said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on May 27 that he "expects a difficult period ahead" and "doesn't want to see a return to the 1970s-style wage-price spiral."

A day earlier, the decision of the government of the United Kingdom, in contrast to the "boring" of the Fed's protocol, greatly surprised the markets. UK Finance Minister Rishi Sunak announced a one-off payment of £650 to the lowest income households to help them with rising prices. The total amount of this fiscal bailout will be £15bn. And although Sunak argued that the support package would have a “minimal impact” on inflation, many analysts thought that this injection could prompt the Bank of England to revise its economic forecasts for this and next year. It is possible that the regulator will decide to take a more hawkish stance in order to limit inflationary pressure on the country's economy.

At the same time, for now, growth prospects for the UK economy remain significantly lower than on the other side of the Atlantic. And this causes many experts to doubt that the pound, together with the GBP/USD pair, can continue to grow steadily in the medium term. Especially if the tension around the Northern Ireland Protocol increases. Recall that this document is an addition to the Brexit Agreement, which regulates special trade, customs and immigration issues between the UK, Northern Ireland and the European Union.

The last chord of the past week sounded at 1.2628. 55% of experts vote for further growth of the pair, 35% for its fall, and the remaining 10% are for a sideways trend.

The situation with indicators on D1 is similar to their readings for EUR/USD. Among the trend indicators, 50% indicate the growth of the pair, and the same number indicate the fall. Among the oscillators, the balance of power is somewhat different: only 10% are looking south, another 10% are neutral, 80% are pointing north, although a quarter of them are already in the overbought zone. Supports are located at 1.2600-1.2620, 1.2475-1.2500, 1.2400, 1.2370, 1.2300, 1.2200, then 1.2154-1.2164 and 1.2075. A strong pivot point for the pair is at the psychologically important level of 1.2000. In case of further movement to the north, the pair will have to overcome the resistance 1.2675, then there are zones 1.2700-1.2750, 1.2800-1.2835 and 1.2975-1.3000.

Among the events of the upcoming week concerning the economy of the United Kingdom, we can note Wednesday, June 01, when the May value of the index of business activity in the manufacturing sector (PMI) will be published. Thursday 02 June and Friday 03 June are bank holidays in the UK.

USD/JPY: Japan Has Its Own Way. But which one?

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has recently said that "the recent movements of the yen are driven by various factors" and has added that the government's priority is to help ease the pressure on households and businesses through various policy measures.

It is interesting to know what lies behind the wording "the recent movements of the yen". Is it the fact that USD/JPY has soared from 102.58 to 131.34 since January 2021, and the Japanese currency has weakened by 2,876 points? So this is not just some kind of “movement”, but a real collapse, about which the country's households are moaning.

Inflation in the country continues to grow, which eventually causes dissatisfaction among the population. The rise in consumer prices is recorded for the eighth month in a row. They increased by 2.5% in April compared to the same month a year earlier, showing the highest growth rate since October 2014. As noted by Dow Jones, inflation has exceeded the 2.0% mark for the first time since September 2008, and this is without taking into account the effect of the consumption tax increase. But how do the leaders of the country react to this?

Whereas US and UK regulators fight inflation by tightening monetary policy, the opposite is true in Japan. According to the aforementioned Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the authorities are aiming to meet the inflation target through the government's structural reforms, fiscal policy, and easing of the Bank of Japan's monetary policy. (Recall that the interest rate on the yen has been at a negative level of -0.1% for a long time).

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, in turn, explained that if energy prices do not show a sharp drop, Japan's core consumer price index (CPI) is likely to remain near the 2% mark for about the next 12 months.

At the same time, if we analyze the statements of both officials, certain discrepancies in their assessment of the economic situation become noticeable. On the one hand, Fumio Kishida says that the government's priority is to alleviate inflationary pressure, including by raising the wages of citizens. On the other hand, Haruhiko Kuroda says that against the background of such wage increases, a steady increase in inflation is possible. As a result, it is not yet clear at what point a compromise will be reached between the Government and the Central Bank of Japan, and what the country's economic policy will look like in the coming months.

Many investors, especially foreign ones, expect that, despite the regulator's assurances of its commitment to an ultra-soft monetary policy, it will still be forced to increase the interest rate. And, apparently, this expectation, along with the fall of DXY, provides support to the yen: the USD/JPY pair ended the last week at 127.11.

At the moment, 60% of analysts side with the bears, expecting further movement of the pair to the south, 15% vote for the resumption of the medium-term uptrend, and 25% expect movement in the sideways.

Among the indicators on D1, the alignment of forces is as follows. For oscillators, 60% are colored red, among which a third gives signals that the pair is oversold, 10% are colored green, and 30% are neutral gray. Among trend indicators, the parity is 50% to 50%. The nearest support is located at 126.35, followed by zones and levels 126.00 and 125.00 and 123.65-124.05. The goal of the bulls is to rise above the horizon of 127.55, then overcome the resistances of 128.00, 128.60 129.40-129.60, 130.00, 130.50 and renew the high of May 09 at 131.34. As the ultimate goal, the January 01, 2002 high of 135.19 is seen.

No important information regarding the state of the Japanese economy is expected to be released this week.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: The Background Is Negative, but There Is Still Hope

We have two pieces of news for you: good and bad. Let's start with the good one. Many experts, such as ARK Invest CEO Katherine Wood, literally dreamed that bitcoin would “get rid” of the S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq stock indices, stop following them in the tail and take on a life of its own. And finally, we have seen something similar over the past two weeks. Despite the volatility in the stock markets, the bulls are desperately trying to keep the defense in the $30,000 zone from May 13 to May 27, preventing the BTC/USD pair from falling below the $28,620 support. This is where the good news ends. Let's move on to the bad one. More precisely, to the bad ones, because there are quite a lot of them.

Cryptocurrency No. 1 is trading in the negative zone for the first time in its history for the eighth week in a row. An important role in these dynamics was played by the direct correlation of BTC with stock indices, which was broken only in the last two decades of May.

Experts from Goldman Sachs noted in April that the Fed's aggressive policy could provoke recessionary phenomena in the US economy. Such expectations led to the flight of institutional investors from risky assets, including cryptocurrencies.

The overall trading activity is declining. The outflow of funds from cryptocurrency investment funds in the past two weeks has reached its highest levels since July 2021. The total amount in fund management has fallen to $38 billion. The number of transactions is also falling. The total volume of coins on crypto exchanges has decreased to 2.5 million BTC, bitcoin flows to cold wallets.

Against this background, negative statements about the main cryptocurrency are heard more and more often. The head of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, said on May 22 that the cryptocurrency does not have any security that could serve as stability. The next day, she was joined by the head of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey, according to whom bitcoin has no intrinsic value and is not suitable as a means of payment.

Scott Minerd, Investment Director of Guggenheim Partners, agrees with the heads of the Central Banks. “Currency should store value, be a means of exchange and a unit of account. There is nothing like it, they [cryptocurrencies] have not even come to a single basis,” he concluded and compared the situation on the crypto market with the dot-com bubble. According to him, most digital assets are “junk”, but bitcoin and ethereum will survive the crypto winter, which will be long. “When you break $30,000, $8,000 is the ultimate bottom. Therefore, I think we still have a lot of room to decline, especially with the Fed acting tough,” Scott Minerd predicted.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz also sees the outlook for the entire financial market as grim. He believes that even despite a significant drop from their all-time highs, altcoins risk losing more than half of their value. However, despite the bearish macroeconomic background, the head of Galaxy Digital remains optimistic and believes in the recovery of the crypto market in the future. According to the head of Galaxy Digital, “The crypto community is resilient and believes that the markets still provide early entry opportunities.”

Indeed, if you analyze social networks, you can see that their users, unlike institutional ones, have much more faith in a better future. Thus, the analytical company Santiment published the data of its Weighted indicator, which calculates negative and positive comments on an asset in social networks. Based on this information, a kind of mood of the crypto community is determined. According to the readings of this instrument, bitcoin has already reached the global bottom and can be expected to rise in the coming weeks. "Now is the moment when bitcoin has every chance of a limited strengthening,” analysts at Santiment believe.

One of the most respected social media analysts aka Credible also believes that, despite the general bearish mood in the markets, BTC is ready to take off. Credible uses the Elliott wave theory for technical analysis, which predicts the behavior of the rate based on the psychology of the crowd, which manifests itself in the form of waves. This theory assumes that a bull market cycle goes through 5 impulse waves, with the asset correcting during the 2nd and 4th waves and rallying during the 1st, 3rd and 5th waves. In addition, each major wave consists of 5 smaller sub-waves.

According to the analyst, bitcoin is now in the middle of the main 5th wave that began at the start of 2019. In addition, BTC is currently still in the 5th sub-wave, which can push the asset to a new all-time high above $100,000. “I understand that my approach is controversial," writes Credible. “Most do not expect a new all-time high until the next halving in 2024, but I expect it sooner, in a few months.”

Rekt Capital, which has over 300,000 Twitter followers, has warned that bitcoin could briefly drop 28% below its 200-week moving average. He explained that this SMA is playing the role of an ever-growing latest support. Bitcoin has fallen below this line in the past, but these periods of capitulation were very short-lived. The weekly candlestick has never closed below this SMA yet, but its shadows were as high as 28%. If this happens again now, the cryptocurrency rate will be at the level of $15,500. The 200-week moving average is currently in the $22,000 zone.

According to another cryptanalyst named Rager, “If the price of BTC declines and bounces off the 200-week moving average, as in past bearish cycles, this is a good sign. There will be a decline of only 68% of the maximum.” However, according to his calculations, such declines were as high as 84% in the past, and "in the current realities, an 84% pullback would lead to $11,000." That being said, given the length of BTC’s bearish cycles in 2014 and 2018, it could take 6 to 8 months before bottoming out.

Rager believes that in the short term, the price of bitcoin will continue to depend on the strength or weakness of the US stock market: “BTC has limited upside right now, but it will not strengthen until the stock markets turn around.”

According to Glassnode, the ratio of open put- and call-options for BTC has increased from 50% to 70%, which indicates an increased desire of investors to secure positions from continued negative dynamics.

The open interest (OI) in call contracts with expiration at the end of July this year is concentrated around the $40,000 mark. However, participants give the greatest preference to put options, which will bring profit in case of price reduction to $25,000, $20,000 and $15,000. In other words, until the middle of the year, the market focuses on hedging risks and/or speculating on a further price reduction.

Optimists predominate over the longer distance. Contracts maturing at the end of the year have the most open positions in the range of $70,000 to $100,000. In the put option, the largest OI is concentrated between $25,000 and $30,000, that is, it is in the zone of current values.

We complete the review of good and bad news for today on this note. We only note that at the time of writing the review, on the evening of Friday May 27, the total capitalization of the crypto market is at the level of $1.194 trillion ($1.248 trillion a week ago). The Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index is firmly entrenched in the Extreme Fear zone and is at around 12 points. (Recall that it fell to 8 points on May 17, the lowest level since March 28, 2020). The BTC/USD pair is struggling to stay in the war zone, trading at $28,800.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

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Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

NordFX Is Recognized "Best Execution Broker LATAM 2022"

NordFX has received more than 60 professional prizes and awards during 14 years of its work in the financial markets. However, it is only now, for the first time in years, that the high quality of customer service from Latin American countries has been recognized: according to the independent expert and analytical group International Business Magazine, NordFX has been named "Best Execution Broker LATAM 2022".

International Business Magazine is an online publishing company with a subscriber base of more than 50,000 that includes investors, C-suite employees, key stakeholders, policymakers, and government bureaucrats. The publication's website gets 4.2 million views annually and an average of 350k unique visitors every month. International Business Magazine covers various important and relevant topics from around the world in the sections "Business and Emerging Markets", "Banking", "Finance", "Technology", reports the latest news and actively promotes innovative solutions in the industry.

The International Business Magazine awards are designed to highlight top talent across industries and regions. “It is a symbol of appreciation for the best-in-class achievements and class-leading innovations,” the magazine's executives said in the congratulatory letter. “It is a mark of inspiration for the upcoming players to surpass the benchmarks set by the award winners. The presented award has become reminiscent of International Quality's hallmark and further validates the company and its leaders as verified service providers or solution developers. We believe a top-performing brokerage firm like Nord FX deserves the award title 'Best Execution Broker Latin America 2022.”

Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

CryptoNews of the Week

- Bitcoin remains an asset free from interference from governments and corporations, inspiring confidence “in this uncertain world.” The head of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor stated this in an interview with Fox News. In his opinion, the markets have entered bearish territory: bonds act as derivatives of currency, losing their value along with shares in conditions of high inflation.
The top manager noted that in such an extremely emotional market, the investor needs the protection that the first cryptocurrency can provide. “Two years after the crisis began, the money supply in the United States has increased by 36%. Gold has risen in price by 7%. The S&P index has risen by 29%, the Nasdaq index - by 19%. Bitcoin has added 229% in price,” he explained.
Saylor noted that as soon as he or the company has extra money, he will continue to invest in this cryptocurrency. MicroStrategy currently holds 129,218 BTC worth about $4 billion.

- An analyst at crypto channel InvestAnswers has looked at 3 likely price points for bitcoin that it could reach by 2030. He considered the market capitalization of gold and believes that in the end, bitcoin will be able to reach 40%, 60% or 100% of the capitalization of the precious metal. In this case, the price of BTC could be around $515,000, $786,000 or $1,300,000, respectively, by 2030. If we take a combination of all 3 aforementioned rate benchmarks, the average expected target is around $867,000.
And the analyst determined another target level by choosing the average value of a selection of forecasts from Fidelity, ARK Invest and other companies. By combining some of the well-known crypto models, he came to the BTC rate around $1,555,000 per 1 coin.

- According to a report by analyst firm Glassnode, long-term BTC holders are the only ones who didn’t lose their heads in the bear market and continue to buy the asset around the $30,000 mark. The current accumulation process mainly involves wallet owners with balances of less than 100 BTC and more than 10,000 BTC. The volumes of the former have increased by 80,724 BTC, the latter - by 46.269 BTC. The BTC accumulation trend indicator has returned over the past few weeks to a near-perfect value of above 0.9. And, despite the sale of some long-term BTC holders, the total volumes held in their wallets have returned to an all-time high of 13.048 million BTC.
At the same time, the total number of wallets with non-zero balances indicates the absence of new buyers. A similar situation was observed after the May 2021 sale. Unlike the sales of March 2020 and November 2018, followed by a surge in online activity and new bullruns, the latest sale does not yet boast an influx of new users.

- Crypto analyst under the nickname Capo, who had previously predicted the fall of bitcoin below $30,000, considers the current small rally to be a typical bull trap. Capo himself still expects a significant decline in altcoins and BTC in the near future: “My opinion has not changed, and I expect altcoins to fall by 40-60%, and bitcoin by 25-30%. Then it will take 1 to 3 months to recover.”
The analyst noted that the S&P 500 index is now in the region of a strong resistance level. And this could be the reason for the resumption of the bearish trend for both the stock and cryptocurrency markets.

- Another crypto strategist and trader, Kevin Swanson, predicts bitcoin will continue to rise to $37,000 in the coming weeks, which will alternate with sharp declines.
Swanson's take on bitcoin's upward bounce is based on his thesis that BTC made a temporary bottom around $26,700 earlier this month. “Looking at this 2021 low [$29,000], one would think that bitcoin is unlikely to go lower. This makes me think that this bottom [$26,700] could act as a long-term support zone.”

- Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius crypto company, believes that the fall in the market has been too long and cryptocurrencies are waiting for a bullish trend with an eight-fold increase in bitcoin. In an interview with Kitco News, he stated that the cryptocurrency markets will recover and even inflation will not be a long-term problem for them. "You can push the spring as hard as you want, but the harder you push, the more it bounces."
The head of Celsius recalled that “when bitcoin recovers, it usually rises five to eight times compared to where it was. Or even more. At the same time, the stock market will only grow by 30-50-70%. Thus, the rebound of cryptocurrencies is always stronger, forward to new higher highs.”
Mashinsky noted that even large investment bankers are increasingly involved in cryptocurrency. “Even JPMorgan, which usually doesn't talk about cryptocurrency, released a report the other day claiming that panic may be exaggerated and is expected to rebound to $38,000 from where we we are today.”

- According to a study by the largest US bank JPMorgan, the dynamics of the volatility of gold and bitcoin caught up and they began to move in unison. This can be seen both in the charts of the last three months and half a year. Moreover, experts do not exclude the possibility that in the future, the capitalization of the two investment assets will be equal, since in the eyes of investors, bitcoin is more in line with the role of a hedge asset.
At the same time, despite the fact that the general dynamics of volatilities for bitcoin and gold is almost identical, the number 1 cryptocurrency still has a larger range of price fluctuations. Therefore, JPMorgan believes that reducing the volatility of bitcoin is an important condition for bringing its capitalization closer to the total capitalization of gold.

- Scott Minerd, Chief Investment Officer at Guggenheim, commented on the JPMorgan study at the Davos Forum. According to his analysis, the “fundamental price of bitcoin” is in the region of $400,000. Such a high estimate is due to the effect of the "unrestrained printing of US dollars" by the US Federal Reserve. At the same time, he believes that the market may see a bottom for bitcoin in the $8,000 area.
According to Minerd, institutional investors have not yet fully appreciated the potential of bitcoin. The image of the flagship is a bit obscured by the fact that "we see that there are 19 thousand types of digital assets, but most of them do not really represent any real value."

- Ki Young Ju, head of market data platform CryptoQuant, believes BTC will not fall below $20,000. This statement was supported by the expert with the remark that "support by institutional investors is at an unprecedented high level."
Ju provided data on the operation of the custodial service for storing digital assets of the Coinbase Custody exchange. According to the charts, the volume of bitcoins under management has continuously increased for 5 quarters, from October 2020 to December 2021. The increase was 296% at the end of the period, reaching 2.2 million BTC.
The analyst also demonstrated a decrease in digital storage stocks in the first quarter of this year, for the first time since the end of 2020. This, according to the head of CryptoQuant, was a reaction to the weakening of the market ability to support the price of the leading asset. However, 1.4 million BTC remains in general storage at the moment.
Based on the data obtained, Ju concluded that in order to reduce the cost of BTC to the level of $20,000, it is necessary to sell off all the capital accumulated during the period of consolidation to the level of 500 thousand dollars. BTC. According to the crypto analyst, institutions are not yet ready for this step. The expert added that the value of the coin is likely to have already reached the bottom of this decline cycle.

- “I want cryptocurrencies to disappear,” these are the words of Dogecoin co-founder Jackson Palmer, who is famous for his scandalous statements, who believes that digital currencies are a technology for tax evasion and government oversight.
Palmer would like the Terra crash to end cryptography, “but it didn't happen.” According to him, “more and more people do nothing, earning money on doing nothing”. “Honestly, I thought the crypto market would explode a lot faster and people would learn their lesson. But in the past six months, I have noticed a continued insistence on investing in cryptocurrencies from companies with big money, which means that the process is not slowing down. We have stopped developing.”
However, Palmer now sees that "there is a revival coming because people are losing money." “I think that there will be a catastrophe in the cryptocurrency market that will be much more painful than before, and unfortunately, most of those who are at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy will suffer.”
Despite Dogecoin's successes, Palmer does not have the best opinion of Tesla CEO Elon Musk: “He's a scam, he's selling his vision in the hope that one day he can deliver what he promises. But he doesn't know for sure. He's just really good at pretending to know."

- Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal, amid the recent fall of altcoins, continues to believe that cryptocurrencies like Ethereum will deprive bitcoin of leadership in the future. The macroeconomist agrees that BTC is the best crypto asset and outperforms ETH in terms of market cap, trading volume, and number of active wallets. “However, if you look at the development of Ethereum, the rate of growth in the number of wallets and transactions in the last couple of years has far outstripped bitcoin, and this is really beneficial for the development of the industry.”

- Venture capitalist Tim Draper confirmed his prediction that the price of bitcoin will exceed six figures in the coming months. In a new interview, he reiterated that the coin will reach a price of $250,000 "by the end of this year or the beginning of next". Tim Draper believes that women will drive the adoption and growth of bitcoin, and the fact that they will increasingly use this cryptocurrency for purchases will be a catalyst.
“Recently we had 1 woman for 14 bitcoin holders, now it's something like 1 to 6. And I think there will be more eventually. What I mean is that women control about 80% of retail spending. If suddenly all women have crypto wallets and they buy things with bitcoins, everything will change. And you will see the price of the coin, which will surpass my estimate of $250,000,” the investor said.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

May Results: Bitcoin and Gold Fall, NordFX Traders Earn

NordFX Brokerage company has summed up the performance of its clients' trade transactions in May 2022. The services of social trading, PAMM and CopyTrading, as well as the profit received by the company's IB-partners have also been assessed.

According to the results of the month, the leader is a trader from Southeast Asia, account No. 1467XXX, whose profit amounted to 29,196 USD. This solid result was achieved mainly in gold (XAU/USD) and euro (EUR/USD) trades.

The second step of the podium with a result of 20,946 USD is taken by their countryman, account No. 1570XXX, who showed how to make money on a market collapse. Their profit came from bitcoin (BTC/USD), which fell by 30% in May, and gold (XAU/USD), which also went down in the first half of the month.
In third place is a trader from South Asia, account No. 1621XXX, who earned 18,355 USD in May on transactions with the British pound (GBP/USD). It should be noted that this trader was one step higher in the TOP-3 in April. At that time, the trader was able to earn 3.5 times more on the same currency pair: 64,004 USD.

The situation in NordFX passive investment services is as follows:

- “startups” were noted in CopyTrading in May. We talked about the first of them last month, this is the Darto Capital signal. It showed a yield of 1,596% In just 48 days of its existence, this figure was 461% in May alone with a maximum drawdown of 25%. The main trading instruments here were the classic Forex pairs EUR/USD (87% of transactions) and GBP/USD (11%).

PPFx13k is on the second position among startups. The signal has been operating since April 21, 2022, and it has made a profit of 607% during these 40 days, although with a rather serious drawdown of 65%. Trading was conducted mostly in pairs GBP/USD (46%) and GBP/JPY (38%). And finally, the third signal from this group is JumboTPC$$. It showed an increase of 107% in just 15 days of life, with a maximum drawdown of 31%. The trading instruments used and their volumes, GBP/USD (36%) and GBP/JPY (40%), suggest that this signal comes from the same source as ppfx13K.

The results of this young trio are certainly impressive. However, it should be understood that they were achieved through very aggressive trading. Therefore, subscribers should be as careful as possible and not forget about risk management.

As for the veteran signal, KennyFXPRO - Journey of $205 to $5,000, it showed a profit of 308% since March 2021 with a maximum drawdown of about 67%. At the same time, it turned out that the supplier of this and a number of other signals under the KennyFxPro “brand” is no stranger to “startups” either. KennyFxPro - The Cannon Ball signal appeared on the CopyTrading showcase 61 days ago. The trading style is non-aggressive, the profit is moderate: about 16%, but the drawdown is less than 6%. The favorite pairs are still the same: AUD/NZD (38%), NZD/CAD (32%) and AUD/CAD (30%).

- In the PAMM service, the TOP-3, or rather TOP-4, has not changed over the past month. The leader is still the same manager under the nickname KennyFXPRO. They increased their capital on the KennyFXPro-the Multi 3000 EA account by 105% in 492 days with a fairly moderate drawdown of less than 21%. TranquilityFX-The Genesis v3 account, which showed a 78% profit in 424 days with a similar maximum drawdown of less than 21%, and NKFX-Ninja 136, which has generated 66% income since June 11, 2021, with the same drawdown of about 21%, are also in the first three.

Another account that we paid attention to a month ago, Ultimate.Duo-Safe Haven, started relatively recently: at the end of February. It has brought not the biggest profit during this time: about 19%, but the maximum drawdown on it has not exceeded 20%.

Among the IB partners, NordFX TOP-3 is as follows:
- the largest commission of the month amounting to 7,011 USD was accrued to a partner from Southeast Asia, account No.1371XXX;
- in second place is a partner from East Asia, account No. 1336XXX, who received 6,827 USD;
- and a partner from South Asia, account No. 1565XXX, who earned 6,612 USD in May, closes the top three.


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

Forex and Cryptocurrency Forecast for June 06 - 10, 2022​

EUR/USD: Inflation and Labor Market Decide It All

The total result of the week can be considered close to zero. If the EUR/USD pair completed the previous five-day period at 1.0730, the final chord sounded at 1.0720 this time. At the same time, we cannot say that the past week was very boring: the maximum volatility was 160 points, 1.0786 at the high and 1.0626 at the low.

The DXY dollar index fell to a 5-week low of 101.29 on Monday, May 30. The reason was the expectation that the Fed may suspend the cycle of raising interest rates after raising it in June and July. Of course, provided that inflation in the US goes down.

However, the trend reversed on Tuesday. There was data from the Eurozone, according to which inflation there soared to a record level. Bloomberg's consensus forecast assumed a 7.8% increase in consumer prices in May. However, according to the European Union Statistics Office, they rose by 8.1% in annual terms after rising by 7.4% in April, which was the highest figure in the history of calculations. Oil prices have also risen to their highs since the beginning of March. As a result, the yield on US 10-year bonds began to rise again, reaching its highest level since May 19, at 2.88%. Along with treasuries, the dollar began to strengthen, and the EUR/USD pair went south, reaching the local weekly bottom on June 01.

The trend changed once again on Thursday, June 02 after the release of data from the US labor market. Employment in the country was expected to grow by 300K. However, in reality, the growth was only 128K, which is clearly not enough to maintain stability in the labor market and threatens unemployment. The negative picture was somewhat corrected by the number of new jobs created outside the agricultural sector (NFP). This indicator was published at the very end of the working week and amounted to 390K with the forecast of 325K and the previous value of 436K. A little more than 200K new jobs need to be created each month to keep the US job market stable. So the NFP of 390K looks pretty positive. As for unemployment, it did not change over the month and remained at the level of 3.6% in May, which is lower than the forecast of 3.5%.

The EUR/USD pair is now trading close to the 2015-2016 lows, while the DXY index has caught up with the December 2016 high, which is the highest point in the last 20 years.

Some currency strategists, such as, for example, analysts at the Swiss holding UBS Wealth Management, believe that the growth of the dollar may stop. The market has already taken into account in quotations both the tightening of monetary policy by the US Central Bank and the rise in interest rates, and no new triggers for the next rally are expected. So, in their opinion, the rise of the EUR/USD pair in the last three weeks may turn out to be not just a technical correction, but a change in the medium-term trend.

65% of analysts agree that the pair will try to break through the 1.0800 resistance next week, 35% expect the pair to return to May lows and the remaining 10% are neutral. It should be noted that with the transition from a weekly to a monthly forecast, the number of bull supporters decreases to 50%, and their maximum target is the zone 1.0900-1.1000. As for oscillators on D1, 80% are colored green (a quarter of them are in the overbought zone), and 20% are neutral gray. There is parity among the trend indicators: 50% vote for the growth of the pair, 50% for its fall. The nearest resistance is located in zone 1.0750-1.0800. If successful, the bulls will try to break through the resistance of 1.0900-1.0945, then 1.1000 and 1.1050, after which they will meet resistance in the 1.1120-1.1137 zone. For the bears, task number 1 is to break through the support of 1.0625-1.0640, then 1.0480-1.0500, and then update the May 13 low at 1.0350. If successful, they will move on to assault the low of January 01, 2017, at 1.0340, below there are only the goals of 20 years ago.

Eurozone GDP data will be released on Wednesday, June 08. However, the key event of the upcoming week will certainly be the ECB meeting on Thursday June 09. Markets are waiting for the decision of the European regulator on the interest rate, which is currently 0%, as well as for the comments on further monetary policy. In addition, the number of initial jobless claims in the US will also become known on Thursday, and a whole package of data on the US consumer market will be published on Friday, June 10.

GBP/USD: In Anticipation of Inflation Forecast

Great Britain celebrated the "platinum" anniversary of Elizabeth II on Thursday, June 02: the 70th anniversary of her accession to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (it happened in 1952). Bank holidays were announced in the country on this occasion, on June 02 and 03.

Other economic events of the week include the publication of the UK Manufacturing PMI, which was slightly lower in May than the April value: 54.6 against 55.8, but it exactly corresponded to the forecast, so the market reacted sluggishly to it. In general, the dynamics of the pair resembled the dynamics of EUR/USD, although the downward pressure in this case was stronger. Like a week earlier, the GBP/USD pair remained in the side corridor of 1.2460-1.2665 and ended the trading session at 1.2497.

Data on business activity in the UK construction and services sectors, as well as the Composite Business Activity Index (PMI), will be published on Tuesday, June 7 and Wednesday June 8. In addition, the Bank of England will publish its latest review of inflation expectations at the end of next week. According to forecasts, they will be significantly higher than the historical maximum (4.4% in 2008), and a jump to 5.0% and above will increase the likelihood of a further increase in the key interest rate on the British pound. A by-election should also take place at the end of June, which will be seen as a test of support for the policies of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party.

In anticipation of these events, forecasts for the pound look very uncertain. At the moment, 40% have voted for its strengthening, 40% - for weakening and 20% - for the continuation of the sideways trend. Among the trend indicators on D1, only 10% indicate the growth of the pair, 90% indicate a fall. Among the oscillators, the ratio of forces is slightly different: 25% look to the south, 35% is neutral, 40% point to the north. Supports are located at 1.2460, 1.2400, 1.2370, 1.2300, 1.2200, then 1.2154-1.2164 and 1.2075. A strong point of support for the pair is at the psychologically important level of 1.2000. In case of growth, the pair will have to overcome the resistance of 1.2600, and then 1.2665, 1.2700-1.2750, 1.2800-1.2835 and 1.2975-1.3000.

USD/JPY: The Pair Is On the Way to 20-Year Highs

The rising dollar is also pushing the USD/JPY pair to update its 20-year highs. It reached a height of 130.97 last week, coming close to the May 09 high of 131.34.

Listing above the reasons for the strengthening of the American currency, we did not mention another one: the meeting of US President Joe Biden with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday, May 31. The central topic of discussion was inflationary pressure, causing discontent among all segments of the country's population. As a result, Joe Biden gave the head of the US Central Bank full independence in the fight against inflation and allowed the use of all the tools available to the regulator, including an aggressive increase in interest rates and a $9 trillion reduction in the balance sheet.

As for the Bank of Japan, it is still not ready to curtail its ultra-soft policy. According to this regulator, monetary stimulus should help the country's economy recover from the doldrums caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Weak economic statistics played against the yen as well. The volume of industrial production in Japan in April fell by 1.3%, instead of the expected reduction by 0.2%. A new round of the coronavirus pandemic in China was named as the reason.

At the moment, only 25% of experts vote for a new assault on the height of 131.34, 65% expect a rollback to the south, and the remaining 10% have taken a neutral position. Indicators have a completely different picture. Both for trend indicators on D1 and for oscillators, all 100% are colored green. True, as for the latter, 20% is in the overbought zone.

The nearest support is located at 129.70-130.20, followed by zones and levels 128.60, 128.00, 127.50, 127.00, 126.00-126.35 and 125.00. The target of the bulls is to renew the May 09 high at 131.34. As the ultimate goal, the January 01, 2002 high of 135.19 is seen.

Data on Japan's GDP for the Q1 of this year will be published next week, on Wednesday, June 08. This indicator is expected to be minus 0.3% (previous value was minus 0.2%). Such a fall will be another argument for the Bank of Japan in favor of maintaining monetary stimulus and negative interest rate.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: From $8,000 to $1,555,000 per 1 BTC

Bitcoin's current small rally has been labeled by some analysts as a "typical bull trap". And if you look at the chart, we can only admit that they are right: a sharp rise to $32,490 at the beginning of the week and then an equally sharp fall and return to the Pivot Point of the last three weeks, the level of $30,000.

Also, if we compare the charts of BTC / USD and the S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq stock indices, it becomes clear that the attempt of the main cryptocurrency to start living its own life has failed. And bitcoin is once again following the stock market, albeit with some delay.

At the time of writing this review, on the evening of Friday 03 June, the total capitalization of the crypto market is at the level of $1.225 trillion ($1.194 trillion a week ago). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is firmly entrenched in the Extreme Fear zone and is at around 10 points (12 a week ago). The BTC/USD pair is trading at $29.770.

According to a report by analyst firm Glassnode, long-term BTC holders are the only ones who didn’t lose their heads in the bear market and continue to buy the asset around the $30,000 mark. The current accumulation process mainly involves wallet owners with balances of less than 100 BTC and more than 10,000 BTC. The volumes of the former have increased by 80,724 BTC, the latter - by 46.269 BTC. At the same time, the total number of wallets with non-zero balances indicates the absence of new buyers. A similar situation was observed after the May 2021 sale. Unlike the sales of March 2020 and November 2018, followed by a surge in online activity and new bull runs, the latest sale does not yet boast an influx of new users.

Moreover, leading mining companies are gradually leaving the ranks of holders. An analytical report by Compass Mining notes that the influx of coins from miners has reached its highest level since January. The fact is that the profitability of mining is falling due to halvings and increasing computational complexity. And it is necessary to pay off loans and other obligations and support operational activities. So mining companies have to part with their own BTC reserves.

As an example, let's take such a long-term holder as Marathon Digital. This company, like a number of others, has long been unprofitable, while it needs to raise about half a billion dollars until the end of 2022. Therefore, it is possible that Marathon Digital will be soon forced to sell some of its 10,000 BTC coins.

Analyst Capo, who previously predicted bitcoin to fall below $30,000, expects altcoins and bitcoin to fall further: “My opinion has not changed, and I expect altcoins to fall by 40-60%, and bitcoin by 25-30%. Then it will take 1 to 3 months to recover.” The analyst noted that the S&P500 index is now in the region of a strong resistance level (4,150-4,200), and this may cause a resumption of the bearish trend for both the stock and cryptocurrency markets.

Another crypto strategist and trader, Kevin Swanson, disagrees with Capo, he predicts bitcoin will rise to $37,000 in the coming weeks. True, this movement will alternate with sharp declines, such as on June 01. Swanson's take on bitcoin's upward bounce is based on his thesis that BTC made a temporary bottom around $26,700 on May 12. “Looking at the 2021 low [$29,000],” he writes, “one would think that bitcoin is unlikely to go lower. This makes me think that this bottom [$26,700] could act as a long-term support zone.”

Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius crypto company, believes that the fall in the market has been too long and cryptocurrencies are waiting for a bullish trend with an eight-fold increase in bitcoin. In an interview with Kitco News, he stated that the cryptocurrency markets will recover and even inflation will not be a long-term problem for them. "You can push the spring as hard as you want, but the harder you push, the more it bounces."

The head of Celsius noted that even large investment bankers are increasingly involved in cryptocurrency. “Even JPMorgan, which usually doesn't talk about cryptocurrency, released a report the other day claiming that panic may be exaggerated and is expected to rebound to $38,000 from where we we are today.”

Scott Maynard, Chief Investment Officer at Guggenheim, opined at the Davos Forum that the "fundamental price of bitcoin" is in the $400,000 region. Such a high estimate is due to the effect of the "unrestrained printing of US dollars" by the US Federal Reserve. At the same time, he believes that the market may see a bottom for bitcoin in the $8,000 area.

Ki Young Ju, head of market data platform CryptoQuant, believes BTC will not fall below $20,000. This statement was supported by the expert with the remark that "support by institutional investors is at an unprecedented high level." Ju cited data on the work of the Coinbase Custody exchange. According to the charts, the volume of bitcoins under management has continuously increased for 5 quarters, from October 2020 to December 2021. The increase was 296% at the end of the period, reaching 2.2 million BTC.

Based on the data obtained, Ju concluded that in order to reduce the cost of BTC to the level of $20,000, it is necessary to sell off all the capital accumulated during the period of consolidation to the level of 500 thousand dollars. BTC. According to the crypto analyst, institutions are not yet ready for this step. The expert added that the value of the coin is likely to have already reached the bottom of this decline cycle.

Venture capitalist Tim Draper confirmed his prediction that the price of bitcoin will exceed six figures in the coming months. He reiterated in a new interview that the coin will reach a price of $250,000 "by the end of this year or the beginning of next". Tim Draper believes that women will drive the adoption and growth of bitcoin, and the fact that they will increasingly use this cryptocurrency for purchases will be a catalyst.

“Recently we had 1 woman for 14 bitcoin holders, now it's something like 1 to 6. And I think there will be more eventually. What I mean is that women control about 80% of retail spending. If suddenly all women have crypto wallets and they buy things with bitcoins, everything will change. And you will see the price of the coin, which will surpass my estimate of $250,000,” the investor said.

According to a study by the largest US bank JPMorgan, the dynamics of the volatility of gold and bitcoin caught up and they began to move in unison. Moreover, the bank's experts do not exclude that in the future the capitalization of the two investment assets will be equal, since in the eyes of investors, bitcoin is more in line with the role of a hedge asset.

Analysts at the crypto channel InvestAnswers considered three options, according to which the capitalization of bitcoin can reach 40%, 60% or 100% of the capitalization of gold. In this case, the price of BTC could be around $515,000, $786,000 or $1,300,000, respectively, by 2030. If we take a combination of all 3 aforementioned rate benchmarks, the average expected target is around $867,000.

And another target level was determined by InvestAnswers experts by choosing the average value of a selection of forecasts from Fidelity, ARK Invest and other companies. By combining some of the well-known crypto models, they came to the BTC rate around $1,555,000 for 1 coin.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

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Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

CryptoNews of the Week

- The PayPal payment company has opened the option of transferring bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin) between client accounts, as well as their withdrawal to third-party wallets. This option will be supported for all US customers in the coming weeks. PayPal Vice President Richard Nash said earlier that the company is making every effort to integrate blockchain and cryptocurrencies into its services.

- 202 new Bitcoin ATMs were installed globally in May according to Coin ATM Radar. The last time the indicator was at such low values was in 2019. The slowdown in device installations began in January 2022. However, in June, the trend changed to positive: 863 crypto-ATMs were already available in the first days of the month. Currently, there are 37,836 such devices in the world. The United States holds the leading position: 87.9% of the total number of cryptocurrency ATMs are concentrated there.

- Bitcoin’s short-term volatility doesn’t matter as long as there is an understanding of the fundamentals of the leading cryptocurrency and how difficult it is to create something better. This opinion was expressed by the head of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor in an interview with The Block. “Bitcoin is the most reliable thing in a very volatile world. It is more reliable than other 19,000 cryptocurrencies, than any shares, than owning property anywhere in the world,” the top manager emphasized.
Commenting on the collapse of Terra and the subsequent market correction, the head of MicroStrategy doubted that what was happening was evidence of a bearish phase. “I don’t know if this is a bear market or not, but if it is, we have had three of them in the last 24 months,” he stressed.
Saylor added that he prefers not to get carried away by short-term prices. According to him, people who pay too much attention to the charts, "guess on coffee grounds." “If you don’t plan to hold it [bitcoin] for four years, you are not an investor at all, you are a trader, and my advice to traders is: don’t trade it, invest in it,” the businessman concluded.

- Consumers lost more than $1 billion in digital asset fraud from January 2021 to March 2022. This is stated in the report of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The agency cited 46,000 people who reported the hoax. “Nearly half of the consumers who reported cryptocurrency fraud said it started with an ad, a post, or a social media message,” the FTC said.
According to the press release, victims of fictitious investment schemes have lost more than others: $ 575 million since January last year. Scams related to dating and romantic relationships are in the second place. The third are fake representatives of companies or of the government. The average amount lost was $2,600. Most often, victims transferred bitcoins (70%), USDT (10%) and Ethereum (9%) to scammers.

- Katie Wood, founder and CEO of ARK Invest with assets of $60 billion, predicts a significant growth in bitcoin. According to her, network indicators hint that BTC is forming a bottom. “According to our data, short-term holders have capitulated, and this is great news in terms of hitting the bottom. The share of long-term holders is at an all-time high: 65.7% (they hold BTC for at least a year). Although there is still a possibility of capitulation of some of them to mark the bottom.
In addition to network indicators, Wood is watching the bitcoin futures market, hinting at a period of increased volatility for the asset. “It is still difficult to say exactly which direction it will go, but we believe that there is a high probability of the next burst of volatility in the upward direction.”
Despite some optimism, one has to exercise caution after the collapse of Terra (LUNA). “At the same time, we are on the alert,” says the CEO of ARK Invest. “Terra’s collapse was a fiasco for cryptocurrencies, and regulators have more reason to impose tighter restrictions than anticipated.”

- Crypto analyst Justin Bennett, giving a forecast for the coming weeks, hinted at a repetition of the June 2021 chart. According to him, the immediate line of defense for the bulls is $28,600. If the asset goes below this level, it risks revisiting the May lows at $26,580-26,910.
According to the analyst, if bitcoin follows the June 2021 scenario, it will form new lows for the current year: “In the event of a sell-off, the downward movement could go to the $24,000-25,000 range. But I do not think that this will be the minimum of the current cycle.”
After the formation of a new annual low, Bennett predicts some growth for bitcoin. “Most likely it will be a short-term rally to a lower macro high.” According to his calculations, the BTC price in July could rise to $35,000 during this short-term growth.

- Jurrien Timmer, macro analyst and director of investment company Fidelity, has updated his long-term forecast for the BTC rate. He refers to the once popular Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model of an analyst with the nickname PlanB, according to which the price of BTC was predicted based on supply shocks caused by asset halvings. However, he added to the S2F model two more models that track the rate of adoption of the Internet and mobile phones.
According to Timmer, based on the mobile phone adoption model, the price of bitcoin could rise sharply to $144,753 by 2025 (about a year after the next halving). But if BTC follows the pace of Internet adoption, then it turns out that the asset has already peaked and can trade at only $47,702 in 3 years. The average value derived from Timmer's modified supply model was $63,778.

- American economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman called cryptocurrencies a scam, comparing them to the real estate crisis in 2008. In an interview with Fox News, he mentioned the movie The Big Short, which tells the story of the financial crisis of the 2000s, which resulted from the collapse of the real estate market. Real estate prices were extremely high, but this did not stop people. The same situation is happening in the cryptocurrency market, Krugman explained.
The economist criticized people who claim that crypto assets are the future of finance. According to Krugman, bitcoin, which appeared in 2009, has not yet found significant practical use over the years, except for use in illegal activities.
“Cryptocurrencies have become a large asset class, and their supporters are increasing their political influence. Therefore, it sounds implausible to many that cryptocurrencies have no real value. But this is only a house built on sand. I remember the housing bubble and the mortgage crisis, so I can say that we have gone from a big short game to a big scam,” said the Nobel laureate.

- According to Reuters, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has laundered $2.35 billion of illegal funds in 5 years. The transactions involved hacks, investment fraud, and illegal drug sales. So, the crypto exchange has been processing transactions of the world's largest drug market, the Hydra darknet website, during all these years. Reuters relied on court records, law enforcement statements and blockchain data in its statement.

- American investment strategist Lyn Alden said that bitcoin is now one of the most reliable assets, along with gold and real estate. The macroeconomist added that she does not expect inflation to fall anytime soon as the US continues to print money to meet its financial obligations.
“Most of my holdings are in long-term hard assets such as shares of pipeline energy companies, profitable producers of real products, bitcoin, some gold, various types of exchange-traded instruments and real estate,” explained Lynn Alden and added that such a diversified set of real assets not only has the necessary liquidity, but also allows her to rebalance the portfolio at any time if there are problems in the global market.

- Bloomberg expert Mike McGlone believes that the highest in the last 40 years inflation is starting, which will cause the largest economic crisis, after which assets such as cryptocurrencies, US bonds and gold will show unprecedented growth. He stated in an interview to Kitco News that "this may be reminiscent of the consequences of 1929. Although I am more inclined to the version that it will be more like the consequences of the 2008 crisis or maybe the consequences of the 1987 crash.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

Forex and Cryptocurrency Forecast for June 13 - 17, 2022​

EUR/USD: We Are Waiting for the Fed Meeting

The movement of the EUR/USD pair from May 23 to June 09 can be considered as sideways in the range of 1.0640-1.0760 (several false breakdowns in both directions do not count). However, this relative calm ended after the meeting of the Board of the European Central Bank on Thursday June 09. The markets woke up, the pair flew down, and having dropped by more than 200 points by mid-Friday, it froze in anticipation of US inflation data.

The ECB meeting was, without a doubt, the main event not only of the last, but also of the previous few weeks. Investors had assumed that the key interest rate would remain unchanged in June at 0% (which happened). But they had hoped that the head of the Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, would announce a 0.50% rate hike in July, especially since inflation reached a record 8.1% in May, and forecasts for its growth for the next three years were greatly increased. But it turned out that the regulator is not ready for such a decisive step, and the rate will be raised by only 0.25%. As for another increase of 0.25%, the ECB will consider such a possibility as early as in September.

The regulator fears that a sharp increase in rates could adversely affect the state of the Eurozone economy, which is already having a hard time due to rising energy prices, supply disruptions and other problems caused by Russia's armed invasion of Ukraine.

The results of Thursday, June 09, showed that the ECB's position now seems to be no longer dovish, but still far from being hawkish like that of the Fed. And that inflation will be higher than expected, while rates, on the contrary, will be lower. This situation had a negative impact on market sentiment and led to the fall of the common European currency.

Another important event of the week was the publication of data on the US consumer market (CPI). Inflation, together with the state of the labor market, are now the most significant indicators that determine the policy of the Fed. Therefore, what happens to consumer prices matters a lot. If prices stop rising and inflation remains at the same level of 8.3%, this is a confirmation of the correctness of the monetary policy of the US Central Bank, especially against the background of a sharp increase in the inflation forecast in the Eurozone.

So, according to the data released on June 10, the Consumer Price Index, excluding food and energy prices (CPI m/m), remained unchanged at 0.6% in May (although this is higher than the forecast of 0.5%), and CPI (g /d) decreased from 6.2% to 6.0% with the forecast of 5.9%. The market considered this a good signal for the dollar, and the EUR/USD pair went further down, ending the week at 1.0520.

Next week, on Wednesday June 15, we are expecting an event, perhaps even more important than the ECB meeting. This is a meeting of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) of the US Federal Reserve, at which a decision will be made on the next increase in the federal funds rate. We have already written that the regulator intends to raise the rate by another 0.5%, and this is most likely already included in the dollar quotes by the market. However, following the meeting, we are waiting for a comment and a press conference by the Fed management, during which investors can learn something new regarding the future plans of the US Central Bank. In general, the intrigue remains.

In the meantime, the voices of experts are divided equally on the evening of June 10: 50% side with the bulls, 50% - with the bears. In the readings of indicators on D1, the red ones dominate completely. These are 100% among the trend indicators. There are the same number of oscillators, but 25% of them are already giving oversold signals. The nearest strong resistance is located in the 1.0600 zone, if successful, the bulls will try to break through the 1.0640 resistance and rise to the 1.0750-1.0760 zone, the next target is 1.0800. For the bears, task number 1 is to break through the support in the 1.0500 area, then 1.0460-1.0480, and then update the May 13 low at 1.0350. If successful, they will move on to assault the low of, 2017 at 1.0340, below there are only the goals of 20 years ago.

As for economic developments in the coming week, in addition to the Fed's FOMC meeting, we recommend paying attention to the publication of the CPI and the ZEW Economic Sentiment Index in Germany on Tuesday, June 14, as well as the Producer Price Index in the US. Data on retail sales will be released on Wednesday, June 15, and on manufacturing activity in the United States the next day. And finally, the value of the Consumer Price Index in the Eurozone will become known at the end of the working week, on Friday, June 17.

GBP/USD: We Are Waiting for the Meeting of the Bank of England

The past week confirmed the positive correlation of the pound against the euro against the dollar. The European currency, which fell on Thursday, June 09, pulled the British currency with it. Both pairs, EUR/USD and GBP/USD, went south. And data on consumer prices in the US gave an additional impetus to their fall on Friday. As a result, the last chord for the pair sounded at around 1.2311.

There will also be a meeting of the Bank of England the day after the Fed meeting, on Thursday June 16. It is possible that their decision on the interest rate will be made with an eye to what their colleagues will decide the day before. In addition, the growth of inflationary expectations may push the regulator to tighten monetary policy (QT, as opposed to quantitative easing QE). The Bank of England/Ipsos inflation forecast for the next 12 months was 4.6% against 4.3% previously.

In anticipation of the meetings of the two Central Banks, the US and England, the forecasts for the pound look very uncertain. Will it continue to fall? 40% of experts have answered this question positively, 50% have answered negatively, and another 10% have simply shrugged. As for the indicators on D1, the absolute majority is on the side of the bears as in the case of EUR/USD. Among trend indicators, 100% indicate a fall, among oscillators a little less: only 90% look south, although a quarter of them are in the oversold zone, the remaining 10% are painted in neutral gray. Supports are located at levels 1.2290-1.2300, 1.2200, then 1.2154-1.2164 and 1.2075. A strong point of support for the pair is at the psychologically important level of 1.2000. In case of growth, the pair will have to overcome the resistance 1.2400-1.2430, 1.2460, 1.2500, 1.2600, and then 1.2640-1.2665, 1.2700-1.2750, 1.2800-1.2835 and 1.2975-1.3000.

In addition to the Bank of England meeting, next week's events for the UK economy include the release of GDP data on Monday June 13 and UK wage and unemployment data on Tuesday June 14.

USD/JPY: Looking Forward to the Bank of Japan Meeting

Although one probably doesn't have to wait for it. It is highly likely that the Bank of Japan will once again leave its ultra-soft monetary policy unchanged at its regular meeting on Friday, June 17, and the interest rate at the negative level of minus 0.1%. But if, at a subsequent press conference, the regulator at least hints at its possible tightening in the foreseeable future, this could have the effect of a bombshell and seriously strengthen the yen.

But, as already mentioned, the chances of this are few. And the rising dollar is again pushing the USD/JPY pair to the next update of 20-year highs. The peak was recorded at a height of 134.55 last week, and the pair finished a little lower, at around 134.37.

At the moment, only 15% of analysts have voted for the pair to rise above 135.00, 35% have accepted neutrality, while the majority (50%) expect the pair to correct south. (However, given the strength of the upward momentum of the pair, the moment of such a correction may be postponed indefinitely). For indicators on D1, the picture is very different from the opinion of experts. For both trend indicators and oscillators, all 100% are colored green. True, among the latter, quite a lot, 40%, are in the overbought zone. The nearest support is located at 134.00, followed by zones and levels 133.00-133.35, 132.25-132.50, 130.45-131.00, 129.70-130.20, 128.60, 128.00, 127.50, 127.00, 126.00-126.35 and 125.00. The target of the bulls is to renew the June 09 high at 134.55. The next target is the January 01, 2002 high of 135.19, to which there is very little left. (Back at the end of April, focusing on the growth rate of the pair, we wrote that the assault on this height could take place in a month and a half. Now we see that this calculation turned out to be 100% correct).

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: Bitcoin in Search of a Bottom

Bulls on the S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq successfully repelled the attacks of the bears for two weeks, until June 09. However, the strengthening dollar and the flight of investors from inflationary risks became the reason for active profit-taking on speculative long positions in stocks. And the quotes fell down.

Fights between bulls and bears on the BTC/USD front line, which runs along the $30,000 horizon, have not ceased for almost five weeks. And to the credit of the bitcoin defenders, despite the stock market crash, they still (Friday evening, June 10) continue to hold the line, only retreating slightly to the south. In such a flat situation, long-term investors can only wait and hope for the pair to grow. As for Intraday traders, transactions during a side trend in a narrow corridor can bring good profits to them. This will require certain skills though.

In our opinion, everyone is free to use the trading strategy that suits them best. Different people have different experiences, different psychological states, different financial possibilities, different time frames that they can devote to trading. In general, everything is individual. For example, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor believes that you should not get carried away with short-term goals. According to him, people who pay too much attention to the charts, "guess on coffee grounds." “If you don’t plan to hold it [Bitcoin] for four years, you are not an investor at all, you are a trader, and my advice to traders is: don’t trade it, invest in it,” Saylor told The Block.

Recall that as of April 14, 2022, MicroStrategy remains the largest bitcoin holder among public companies. Together with its affiliates, it owns 129,218 BTC purchased for $3.97 billion at an average price of around $30,700. So the current situation for MicroStrategy and personally for Michael Saylor is critical. The company will be at a fairly disadvantageous position if the price of the main cryptocurrency does not go up. And according to a number of experts, it may well go the other way.

So, cryptanalyst Justin Bennett, giving a forecast for the coming weeks, hinted at a repetition of the June 2021 chart. According to him, the nearest line of defense for the bulls is at $28,600. If the asset goes below this level, it risks revisiting the May lows at $26,580-26,910.

According to the analyst, if bitcoin follows the June 2021 scenario, it will form new lows for the current year: “In the event of a sell-off, the downward movement could go to the $24,000-25,000 range. But I do not think that this will be the minimum of the current cycle.”

After the formation of a new annual low, Bennett predicts some growth for bitcoin. “Most likely it will be a short-term rally to a lower macro high.” According to his calculations, the BTC price in July could rise to $35,000 during this short-term growth.

But Katie Wood, the founder and CEO of the investment company ARK Invest with assets of $60 billion, believes that BTC is already forming a bottom based on the network's performance. According to her, “short-term holders have capitulated, and this is great news in terms of hitting the bottom. The share of long-term holders is at an all-time high: 65.7% (they hold BTC for at least a year). Although there is still a possibility of capitulation of some of them to mark the bottom.

In addition to network indicators, Wood is watching the bitcoin futures market, hinting at a period of increased volatility for the asset. “It is still difficult to say exactly which direction it will go, but we believe that there is a high probability of the next burst of volatility in the upward direction.”

Despite some optimism, one has to exercise caution after the collapse of Terra (LUNA). “At the same time, we are on the alert,” says the CEO of ARK Invest. “Terra’s collapse was a fiasco for cryptocurrencies, and regulators have more reason to impose tighter restrictions than anticipated.”

By the way, commenting on the collapse of Terra and the subsequent market correction, the aforementioned head of MicroStrategy doubted that what was happening was evidence of a bearish phase. “I don’t know if this is a bear market or not, but if it is, we have had three of them in the last 24 months,” Michael Saylor stressed.

As for long-term forecasts, they, as usual, look in different directions. American economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman called cryptocurrencies a scam, comparing them to the real estate crisis in 2008. In an interview with Fox News, he mentioned the movie The Big Short, which tells the story of the financial crisis of the 2000s, which resulted from the collapse of the real estate market. Real estate prices were extremely high, but this did not stop people. The same situation is happening in the cryptocurrency market, Krugman explained.

The economist criticized people who claim that crypto assets are the future of finance. According to Krugman, bitcoin, which appeared in 2009, has not yet found significant practical use over the years, except for use in illegal activities.

“Cryptocurrencies have become a large asset class, and their supporters are increasing their political influence. Therefore, it sounds implausible to many that cryptocurrencies have no real value. But this is only a house built on sand. I remember the housing bubble and the mortgage crisis, so I can say that we have gone from a big short game to a big scam,” said the Nobel laureate.

Unlike Paul Krugman, Bloomberg expert Mike McGlone believes that we, on the contrary, are in for a big game, but not going down, but going up. According to his forecast, the highest in the last 40 years inflation is starting, which will cause the largest economic crisis, after which assets such as cryptocurrencies, US bonds and gold will show unprecedented growth. McGlone stated in an interview to Kitco News that "this may be reminiscent of the consequences of 1929. Although rather, it will be more like the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, or maybe the aftermath of the 1987 crash.”

Along with Mike McGlone, Katie Wood and Michael Saylor, American investment strategist Lyn Alden has also sided with the bulls. She does not expect inflation to ease any time soon as the US continues to print money to meet its financial obligations. That is why, in her opinion, bitcoin is now one of the most reliable assets, along with gold and real estate.

Our previous review named the target level for bitcoin, which InvestAnswers experts set by choosing the average value of a selection of forecasts from Fidelity, ARK Invest and other companies. Having combined some of the well-known crypto models, they came to the BTC rate by 2030 iaround $1,555,000 per 1 coin.

However, macro analyst and director of investment company Fidelity Jurrien Timmer has updated his long-term forecast, and it looks much more modest now. Jurrien Timmer refers to the once popular Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model of an analyst with the nickname PlanB, according to which the price of BTC was predicted based on supply shocks caused by asset halvings. However, the expert added to the S2F model two more models that track the rate of adoption of the Internet and mobile phones.

According to Timmer, based on the mobile phone adoption model, the price of bitcoin could rise sharply to $144,753 by 2025 (about a year after the next halving). But if BTC follows the pace of Internet adoption, then it turns out that the asset has already peaked and can trade at only $47,702 in 3 years. The average value obtained by Timmer based on his modified supply model is $63,778.

Time will tell which of the experts is right. In the meantime, at the time of writing the review, on the evening of Friday June 10, the total capitalization of the crypto market is at the level of $1.192 trillion ($1.225 trillion a week ago). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is firmly entrenched in the Extreme Fear zone and is at around 13 points (10 a week ago). The BTC/USD pair is trading at $29.340.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

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Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

CryptoNews of the Week

- The collapse of the cryptocurrency market on June 13 and 14 was not caused by the announcement of the Celsius Network crypto-lending platform to suspend the withdrawal of funds, but by the general negative macroeconomic background. This opinion was expressed by industry participants in a survey conducted by The Block.
Celsius suspended withdrawals, exchanges, and transfers between accounts on June 13 “due to extreme market conditions.” As of May, the platform managed $11 billion in user assets.
However, many experts believe that the crypto markets “would have fallen regardless of Celsius.” Bloomberg notes that the market has entered "a period of selling everything except the dollar." Traders are leaving for a "safe harbor", fearing that due to rising inflation, the US Federal Reserve may start raising interest rates more aggressively than was previously expected. Wall Street analysts believe that the rate will rise in June by 1.0% straight away, and not by 0.5%. Such a result could have negative implications for risky assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Against this background, the price of bitcoin fell to $20,000 on June 15, ethereum fell to $1,000, and the crypto market capitalization fell to $0.86 trillion. Recall that it reached $2.97 7 months ago, in November 2021.

- The widespread adoption of the first cryptocurrency may occur faster than previous innovative technologies and reach 10% by 2030. This is stated in the Blockware Intelligence study.
Analysts studied the historical curves of adoption of cars, electricity, the Internet and social networks, as well as the pace of bitcoin adoption since 2009. “All disruptive technologies follow a similar exponential S-curve […] but new network technologies continue to be introduced much faster than the market expects,” the report says. However, Blockware Intelligence emphasizes that the model used at this stage is just a concept and is not an investment recommendation.

- Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal also compared the rate of adoption of cryptocurrencies by society with the development of the Internet. The macroeconomist concluded that the slowdown in the development of the industry will begin in four years. He stated that “if the pace of development of the industry remains at the same level, we will have five or four billion people using cryptocurrency by 2030.”

- Well-known trader and analyst Tony Weiss believes that the real capitulation for bitcoin will take place soon. Weiss reviewed the Bitcoin Momentum Reversal Indicator (MRI), which predicts trend lifecycles based on an asset's momentum. According to him, MRI points to a few more days (4-5) of falling, after which a market reversal may occur.
According to Weiss, most likely, the BTC rate will not fall below $19,000. But a further fall is not ruled out: “Is it possible to reach $17,180? I think so. But if the downward movement continues, the next level could be around $14,000. In my opinion, bitcoin will not fall so much, and the lowest level will be $19,000,” the expert believes.

- Bank of America analyst Jason Kupferberg told CNBC in an interview that the bank conducted a large survey among Americans in June 2022. The expert noted that about 90% of respondents answered unequivocally that they plan to buy a certain amount of cryptocurrency over the next few months. It is noteworthy that Bank of America itself does not yet plan to provide digital currency trading services.
The survey also showed that the majority of respondents had previously acted as short-term investors. About 77% of them held digital coins in their portfolio for less than one year. Almost a third spoke in favor of the fact that they are not going to sell their assets for the next six months.
According to Jasonf Kupferberg, this user interest is due to the increase in the number of crypto-fiat products. For example, the appearance of the Coinbase Visa card has significantly simplified the process of exchanging digital assets for fiat money. He also confirmed that cryptocurrencies are closely correlated with high-risk assets like stocks of fast-growing technology corporations.

- The American Express international payment service, together with the Abra crypto company, will offer its customers a Crypto Rewards credit card with cryptocurrency bonuses. According to public information, cardholders will be rewarded for purchases of any amount in more than 100 different cryptocurrencies supported by Abra, with no fees for transactions.

- The bear market upsets all investors. But the two largest institutional bitcoin holders have been particularly distinguished. They lost a total of about $1.4 billion on this asset. According to the analytical resource Bitcointreasuries.net, almost 130,000 bitcoins owned by Microstrategy and 43,200 bitcoins owned by Tesla made their owners significantly poorer (we are talking about an unrealized loss yet).
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor spent almost $4 billion ($3,965,863,658) on 129,218 BTC, which is approximately 0.615% of the total issuance of the first cryptocurrency. The fall in the price of bitcoin depreciated the company's investment to $3.1 billion, thus the loss amounted to $900 million. Apart from this, Microstrategy shares also fell to their lowest levels in recent months.
The investment of Elon Mask, whose car company Tesla bought more than 40,000 bitcoins during the 2021 bull market, has also taken a big hit. He lost about $500 million on his investments.

- Anthony Scaramucci, founder of $3.5 billion investment fund SkyBridge Capital, shared his thoughts on the current bear market. In an interview with CNBC, he called what was happening "a bloodbath", adding that he managed to survive seven "bear" markets. The former politician and White House communications director hopes he will be able to "get out" of the eighth one as well.
“I am encouraged by the fact that bitcoin exceeds currently 50% of the total market capitalization of the crypto market. This is another sign that proves its value,” said Scaramucci, recommending that investors keep buying bitcoin and stay calm. The financier believes that it is better to stick to a long-term investment strategy, but at the same time do without borrowed funds.
“All cryptoassets have a long-term perspective as long as they don’t face short-term losses. Then investors begin to tear their hair out and bang against the wall. It is better to buy a quality crypto asset (BTC or ETH) without being distracted by others, and maintain discipline without looking back at the bear markets that sometimes happen. If you remain calm during these periods, you will get rich,” says SkyBridge Capital's managing partner.

- The collapse of the bitcoin rate did not lead to a quick recovery. However, bulls have managed to protect an important level so far. We are talking about the 200-week moving average (200WMA), which served as a strong support in all previous bear market phases. Bitcoin has never managed to gain a foothold below this line so far. (By "gaining a foothold" traders mean the closing of the candle below a certain level). After dropping to almost $20,000, there was a quick rebound that took the price above the critical $20,400 mark.
Big buying saved the day, according to Material Indicators analysts, but “it's still too early to tell if support can be sustained. The eyes of the entire market are focused on the meeting of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) of the US Federal Reserve, which will be held on June 15 at 22:00 CET, at which a decision will be made to increase the key interest rate.

- The Crypto Fear & Greed Index BTC fell to 7 points out of 100 ahead of the FOMC meeting, which is comparable to March 2020 values. Then the price of bitcoin bottomed out at $3,800. According to Arcane Research analysts, the index has been in the Fear zone for 56 days, which is a record. “Market participants are undoubtedly tired of this, many capitulate. Historically, buying has been a profitable strategy in times of fear. However, it is not easy to catch a falling knife,” the researchers shared their thoughts.
The company noted that $20,000 is a critical level for bitcoin in the context of technical analysis. “Therefore, a possible visit below this level could lead to the capitulation of many hodlers and deleverages.” There is also significant open interest in bitcoin options around the $20,000 mark. This is a factor of additional pressure on the spot market if the above level does not withstand the onslaught of bears.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

Forex and Cryptocurrency Forecast for June 20 - 24, 2022​

EUR/USD: Fed FOMC Meeting Results

Last week's events were based on Friday, June 10, when US inflation statistics were released, which amounted to 8.6% against the expected 8.3%. Having learned these disturbing data, market participants began to include in dollar quotes the possibility of raising the interest rate by 0.75% instead of the previously predicted 0.5%. Some hotheads even talked about its increase by 1.0% straight away. As a result, the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) at its meeting on Wednesday, June 15, raised the key rate to 1.75%, that is, by 0.75%.

According to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, this was the most aggressive round of monetary tightening since 1994. Moreover, the US Central Bank, despite the threat of a recession, intends to follow the chosen course further, raising the rate by another 50 or 75 basis points at the next meeting.

Following the FOMC meeting, the inflation estimates for 2022 were revised from 3.4% to 5.2%, and the forecast for the key rate was raised from 1.9% to 3.4%. At the same time, Jerome Powell hopes that this will not be a shock to the economy, given the strength of the consumer sector and the US labor market. True, despite the optimism of the head of the Fed, the expected rate of economic growth for 2022 was reduced from 2.8% to 1.7%, and the forecast for the unemployment rate, on the contrary, was raised from 3.5% to 3.7%.

In general, Jerome Powell's comments on the regulator's plans turned out to be rather vague, and the market did not understand how strong quantitative tightening (QT) would be and what the prospect of raising the federal funds rate to 4.0% was. As the head of the Fed said, "a rate hike of 75 basis points is unusually large," so he does not think "such hikes will happen often."

As a result, the DXY dollar index reached its maximum (105.47), and the EUR/USD pair reached its minimum (1.0358) not following the FOMC meeting, but directly during it. The reason for the rapid strengthening of the dollar at the beginning of the week was not only the expectations of an unprecedented rate hike, but also poor macroeconomic statistics from Europe. The rate of decline in industrial production in the Eurozone accelerated from -0.5% to -2.0%, although it had been expected that they would slow down on the contrary. The main reason is still the energy crisis caused by anti-Russian sanctions due to Russia's military invasion of Ukraine.

The dollar seemed to have exhausted its upside potential on the evening of June 15, resulting in a rapid bounce on June 16, sending EUR/USD soaring to 1.0600. As for the last day of the working week, the trend changed again after the ECB promised new support to contain the cost of borrowing among the southern countries of the Eurozone. The pair placed the final chord of the five-day period in the zone of 1.0500, at the level of 1.0495.

Many analysts believe that the US and European currencies will reach 1:1 parity by the end of the year (or maybe even earlier). In the meantime, the votes of experts are divided as follows on the evening of June 17: 30% side with the bulls, 20% - with the bears, and 50% cannot decide on the forecast. The indicators on D1 give quite unambiguous signals. Among oscillators, 100% are colored red, among trend indicators, 90% are red and 10% are green. Except for 1.0500, the nearest strong resistance is located in the 1.0600 zone, if successful, the bulls will try to break through the 1.0640 resistance and rise to the 1.0750-1.0760 zone, the next target is 1.0800. For the bears, task number 1 is to break through the support in the 1.0460-1.0480 area, and then update the May 13 low at 1.0350. If successful, they will move on to storm the 2017 low of 1.0340, there is only support from 20 years ago below.

As for the events of the upcoming week, Monday, June 20 is a public holiday in the US, the country celebrates Juneteenth. Data from the housing market will come on Tuesday, June 21 and Friday, June 24, and from the US labor market on Thursday. In addition, we will have two speeches by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in Congress on June 22 and 23. Also we recommend paying attention to the publication of data on business activity in Germany and the Eurozone as a whole on June 23.

GBP/USD: A Pleasant Surprise from BoE

Ahead of the US Fed meeting, the dollar appreciated against the pound by 585 points in just 3 business days, from June 10 to 14, and the GBP/USD pair fell to 1.1932, the lowest level since March 2020. But then the regulator of the United Kingdom stepped in.

At its meeting on Thursday, June 16, the Bank of England (BoE) raised its key rate from 1.00% to 1.25%. It would seem that 25 basis points is only a third of the 75 bp that the Fed raised the rate the day before, but the pound flew up and the pair fixed a local high at 1.2405. The British currency strengthened by 365 points in just a few hours.

The reason for this rally, as often happens, is expectations. First, 3 out of 9 members of the Bank's Management Board supported an increase in the refinancing rate not by 25, but by 50 basis points at once. And secondly, the comments published after the meeting clearly indicated the possibility of accelerating the pace of tightening of monetary policy, starting from the next meeting of the regulator. That is, the rate may reach 1.75%, as early as August 4, which is significantly higher than market forecasts. In addition, the Bank of England intends not to stop there and raise interest rates further.

In contrast to the Fed's vague comments, the BoE was clear enough about its monetary policy that made a positive impression on investors. Analysts also noted that, unlike their colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic, the Bank of England leaders did not shift all the blame for rising inflation to China and Russia.

The pound retreated from the gained positions at the end of the week, and the pair ended the trading session at the level of 1.2215. At the moment, 50% of experts believe that in the near future the pair will try to test the resistance at 1.2400 again, 10%, on the contrary, are waiting for a test of support around 1.2040, the remaining 40% of analysts have taken a neutral position.

Both among trend indicators and among oscillators, 90% indicate a fall, while the remaining 10% look in the opposite direction. Supports are located at the levels 1.2155-1.2170, then 1.2075 and 1.2040. The pair's strong foothold lies at the psychologically important 1.2000 level, followed by the June 14 low at 1.1932. In case of growth, the pair will meet resistance in the zones and at the levels of 1.2255, 1.2300-1.2325, 1.2400-1.2430, 1.2460, then the targets in the area of 1.2500 and 1.2600 follow.

Among the macroeconomic events of the upcoming week concerning the United Kingdom, we can highlight the publication of the May value of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday, June 22, and of a whole package of PMI Indices, reflecting business activity in individual sectors and in the economy of the country generally the next day, on June 23. Retail sales in the UK for May will be announced on Friday, June 24.

USD/JPY: No Surprises from the Bank of Japan

Rising dollar pushes USD/JPY again and again to fresh 20-year highs. Last week, having reached the height of 135.58, it broke the January 01, 2002 record of 135.19. This was followed by a powerful pullback to the level of 131.48 and a no less powerful new upswing, after which the pair finished near the level of 135.00, at around 134.95.

A weak yen, especially in the face of high inflation, is a big problem not only for households, but for the entire Japanese economy, as it increases the cost of raw materials and natural energy imported into the country. However, the Bank of Japan is stubborn to maintain its ultra-soft monetary policy, in contrast to the sharp tightening by the Central banks of other countries. After the US Federal Reserve, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of England raised interest rates last week, the Japanese Central Bank left its rate at the previous negative level - minus 0.1% at its meeting on Friday June 17, while promising to maintain the yield of 10-year government bonds at around 0%. There have been several attempts to test the 0.25% yield on government debt over the past weeks, but aggressive buybacks of these securities immediately followed in response.

Japanese officials tried to give some support to the yen on the morning of June 17. The government and the Bank of Japan issued a joint (rarely seen) statement that they were concerned about the sharp fall in the national currency. These words were supposed to indicate to investors that the possibility of adjusting monetary policy is not ruled out at some point. But there was not a word in the statement about when and how this could happen, so the market reaction to it was close to zero.

A number of specialists, such as, for example, strategists at the largest banking group in the Netherlands ING, believe that there is still “an increased risk that USD/JPY will significantly exceed 135.00 in the coming days if the Japanese authorities do not step up and carry out currency intervention”.

Most analysts (55%) have long been waiting for the intervention of the authorities, or at least a revival of interest in the yen as a safe-haven currency. However, this forecast has not come true for several weeks. Although it is possible that a strong correction will be repeated, as happened on June 15-16, when the pair fell by 410 points. 35% of experts are counting on updating the high at 135.58, and 10% believe that the pair will take a breather, moving in a sideways trend. For indicators on D1, the picture is very different from the opinion of experts. For trend indicators, all 100% are colored green, for oscillators, 90% of them are, 10% of which are in the overbought zone, and another 10% vote for the red. The nearest support is located at 134.50, followed by zones and levels at 134.00, 133.50, 133.00, 132.30, 131.50, 129.70-130.30, 128.60 and 128.00. It is difficult to determine the further targets of the bulls after the new update of the January 01, 2002 high. Most often, such round levels as 136.00, 137.00, 140.00 and 150.00 appear in the forecasts. And if the pair's growth rates remain the same as in the last 3 months, it will be able to reach the 150.00 zone in late August or early September.

With the exception of the release of the Bank of Japan Monetary Policy Committee meeting report on Wednesday, June 22, no other major events are expected this week.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: Bloodbath or the Battle for $20,000

Anthony Scaramucci, founder of $3.5 billion investment fund SkyBridge Capital, called it a "bloodbath." And it's hard to disagree with him.

In total, bitcoin lost 70% between November 11, 2021 and June 15, 2022. It has lost about a third of its value in the past week alone. According to some experts, the trigger this time was the announcement of the crypto-lending platform Celsius Network to suspend the withdrawal of funds, their exchange and transfer between accounts “due to extreme market conditions.” (As of May, the platform managed $11 billion in user assets.)

However, the general negative macroeconomic background is most likely to blame. This opinion was expressed by industry participants in a survey conducted by The Block. Many experts believe that the crypto markets “would have fallen regardless of Celsius.” Bloomberg notes that the market has entered "a period of selling everything except the dollar." Traders are leaving for a "safe harbor" due to more aggressive tightening of the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve (QT), caused by rising inflation. The market is actively getting rid of risky assets, the S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq stock indices are falling, and bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies along with them.

The price of BTC fell to almost $20,000 on Wednesday June 15, ethereum quotes fell to $1,000, and the capitalization of the crypto market fell to $0.86 trillion. Recall that it had reached $2.97 trillion 7 months ago, in November 2021.

The bear market upsets all investors. But the two largest institutional bitcoin holders have been particularly distinguished. They lost a total of about $1.4 billion on this asset. According to the analytical resource Bitcointreasuries.net, almost 130,000 bitcoins owned by Microstrategy and 43,200 bitcoins owned by Tesla made their owners significantly poorer (we are talking about an unrealized loss yet).

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor spent almost $4 billion ($3,965,863,658) on 129,218 BTC, which is approximately 0.615% of the total issuance of the first cryptocurrency. The fall in the price of bitcoin depreciated the company's investment to $3.1 billion, thus the loss amounted to $900 million. Apart from this, Microstrategy shares also fell to their lowest levels in recent months.

The investment of Elon Mask, whose car company Tesla bought more than 40,000 bitcoins during the 2021 bull market, has also taken a big hit. He lost about $500 million on his investments.

Of course, Michael Saylor and Elon Musk aren't the only ones struggling. The fall of the crypto market hit the largest US crypto exchange as well. Coinbase Global announced the layoff of 1,100 employees (approximately 18% of the entire staff). Shares of Coinbase itself fell in price by 26% over the past week, and its capitalization decreased to $11.5 billion. Director and co-founder of the company Brian Armstrong said that “a recession can cause a new crypto winter that will last for a long time.”

Stablecoins also add cold to investors' hearts. The passions for UST (Terra) have not subsided yet, as the USDD of the Tron network has faced a systemic crisis. USDD lost touch with the dollar on June 13, and TRX fell by 22%.

As of this writing, the BTC/USD bull/bear fight is for the 200-week moving average (200WMA). This WMA used to serve as strong support in all previous bear market phases. Until now, bitcoin has never managed to gain a foothold below this line, and we will find out on Monday June 20 if it managed to do so this time. (By "gaining a foothold" traders mean the closing of a candle below a certain level).

Arcane Research believes that the $20,000 level is critical for bitcoin in the context of technical analysis. “Therefore, a possible visit below this level could lead to the capitulation of many hodlers and deleverages.” There is also significant open interest in bitcoin options around the $20,000 mark. This is a factor of additional pressure on the spot market if the above level does not withstand the onslaught of bears.

Renowned trader and analyst Tone Vays cites the Bitcoin Momentum Reversal Indicator (MRI), which predicts the life cycles of a trend. At the moment, MRI points to a few more days (4-5) of falling, after which a market reversal may occur.

According to Vays, most likely, the BTC rate will not fall below $19,000. But a further fall is not ruled out: “Is it possible to reach $17,180? I think so. But if the downward movement continues, the next level could be around $14,000. However, in my opinion, bitcoin will not fall so much, and the level of $19,000 will be the lowest mark,” the expert said.

This forecast can be considered optimistic. For example, the president of the brokerage company Euro Pacific Capital, Peter Schiff, predicted a fall to $8,000 a month ago. And the American economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman called cryptocurrencies a fraud and a bubble that will soon burst.

As of Friday evening, June 17, the total crypto market capitalization is at $0.895 trillion ($1.192 trillion a week ago). The BTC/USD pair is trading at $20,500. Bitcoin's Crypto Fear & Greed Index is firmly entrenched in the Extreme Fear zone and was falling to 7 points out of 100 possible (13 weeks ago). This value is comparable to March 2020 values. Then the price of bitcoin bottomed out at $3,800. According to Arcane Research analysts, the index has been in the Fear zone since April 12, which is a duration record. “Market participants are undoubtedly tired of this, many capitulate. Historically, buying has been a profitable strategy in times of fear. However, it is not easy to catch a falling knife,” the researchers shared their thoughts.

And finally, a bit of optimism from the founder of SkyBridge Capital, Anthony Scaramucci, with whose words we began this review. In an interview with CNBC, the former politician and White House director of communications not only called what was happening a “bloodbath,” but also added that he had survived seven bear markets and he hopes that he will be able to “crawl out” of the eighth.

“All crypto assets have a long-term perspective, as long as they do not face short-term losses,” the financier said. “Then investors start tearing their hair out and hitting the wall. It is better to buy a quality crypto asset without being distracted by others and maintain discipline without looking back at the bear markets that sometimes happen. If you remain calm during these periods, you will get rich,” Scaramucci encouraged investors.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

CryptoNews of the Week

- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin supported The Daily Gwei creator Anthony Sassano, who called on the popular PlanB analyst to delete his account. The reason is the failure of the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, which PlanB has been actively promoting in recent years.
“It's rude to gloat, but I think financial models that give people a false sense of confidence about asset growth are harmful and deserve ridicule,” Buterin wrote. The Ethereum co-founder added a chart to his post that shows a significant divergence between the real price of bitcoin and its S2F forecast.
PlanB reacted to Buterin's criticism with restraint. He said that in the aftermath of the crash, many are looking for scapegoats, including leaders. PlanB then presented a chart of five different bitcoin rate prediction models. According to the illustration, the most accurate picture is given by estimates based on the complexity and cost of mining the first cryptocurrency. The S2F model, in turn, offers an overly optimistic view.

- The internet is talking again about the death of bitcoin. The number of search queries on this topic has returned to its highest levels against the backdrop of the collapse in the price of the first cryptocurrency. The bitcoin dead request scored 93 points on Google Trends in the week ending June 18. This is just one point less than the maximum recorded in December 2017. Canada, Singapore and Australia are among the leaders among the “pessimists”. The United States and Nigeria follow them, even though the population there is much larger.

- Bitcoin's return to levels above $20,000 does not mean that it has bounced off the bottom. This was stated by Peter Schiff, a well-known cryptocurrency critic, President of Euro Pacific Capital. According to this gold supporter, the $20,000 mark will be the same “bull trap” as the $30,000 level was before. “Nothing falls in a straight line. In fact, it's a very orderly crash in slow motion. There is no sign of capitulation so far, which usually forms the bottom of a bear market,” Schiff said.
The head of Euro Pacific Capital had said Earlier that the collapse of the cryptocurrency market is good for the economy. He also added that even if digital assets have a future, bitcoin will never be part of it. Recall that Peter Schiff predicted back in May that bitcoin would test $8,000. And the investor suggested in mid-June that the minimum could be even lower, around $5,000.

- El Salvador President Nayib Bukele advised bitcoin investors not to worry about the quotes of the first cryptocurrency. “My advice is to stop looking at charts and enjoy your life. If you have invested in BTC, your investment is safe, its value will rise immeasurably after the end of the bear market. The main thing is patience,” he wrote.
In response, the aforementioned Peter Schiff stated that Bukele's advice was as bad as his "buy the top" recommendation. The latter is likely a reference to the "buy the dip" stock exchange slogan that Bukele often mentioned.
For reference, there are 2,301 BTC in El Salvador's public bitcoin fund, purchased at an average price of $43,900. Thus, at the moment, the loss on them has amounted to about 55%.

- An analyst aka Capo, who had correctly predicted the collapse of the cryptocurrency market this year, updated his forecast for top crypto assets. According to him, investors are fooling themselves into believing that a short-term rally means bitcoin has reached the bottom of the cycle. According to Capo, bitcoin is only rising because investors are liquidating their holdings of altcoins and investing in BTC in order to exit it: “Bull trap. Funds from altcoins flow into BTC, which will also be sold, but a little later. There is no bottom yet." The analyst shared his updated forecast regarding the fall levels of these assets: BTC is expected to decline to $16,200, and ETH to $750.

- According to crypto strategist Kevin Svenson, bitcoin has a chance to bottom in the $17,000-18,000 range, after which a short-term rally to above $30,000 could occur. At the same time, although Svenson expects this short-term growth, he does not see the prerequisites for launching a new bull market in the near future: “Overcoming the main downward resistance is the main obstacle and the process may last until the end of the year.”
According to the strategist, after the breakthrough of the diagonal resistance, bitcoin can trade in a narrow range for several months and start a new uptrend only by 2024 year.

- Cryptocurrency analyst Benjamin Cowen proposed his bottom search model for bitcoin. He believes that the bottom can be predicted based on the correlation of inflation, the S&P 500 stock index and the BTC price. The analyst argues that the S&P 500 index does not historically sink to the very bottom until inflation peaks and reverses. Accordingly, BTC cannot reach the bottom for the same reason. “Macroeconomic indicators look incredibly bleak at the moment. If you go back to the 1970s, you'll see a very similar type of move where the S&P bottomed just as inflation hit its first peak. By this point, the S&P was down about 50%,” writes Cowen.

- Shark Tank business TV show co-host Kevin O'Leary says big companies shouldn't be afraid of bankruptcy during the crypto winter, as their departure forms a promising market bottom. “This is good for all other companies as they will learn from this. I think we will soon see a wave of bankruptcies in the cryptocurrency market. I don't know who it will be, but I assure you that I have seen it before. Later you will recognize those who have taken a high-risk position. They have been destroyed, and that's good,” said the millionaire.
Crypto channel InvestAnswers, in turn, named 3 possible catalysts for the market collapse. The BTC price may fall even more if MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor decides to sell the bitcoins in the company's reserves. In addition, the potential collapse of the stablecoin Tether (USDT) and the problems of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital may also contribute to further capitulation of BTC. According to InvestAnswers, we should not forget about the possible sale of crypto assets by Tesla.
MicroStrategy reported a $1.2 billion loss last week due to the fall of bitcoin. As for the Three Arrows Capital fund, it now has about $2.4 billion left in assets out of $18 billion.

- Despite the low current rate of bitcoin, many participants in the crypto industry believe in its future growth. For example, there is a belief that BTC could reach $100,000 by 2025. Bloomberg Senior Strategist Mike McGlone is one of them. He has no doubt that the widespread use of cryptocurrencies and, in particular, bitcoin, can lead to a rise in the price of BTC to six figures.
Cryptocurrency is about 1% of the total market capitalization of all stocks on the planet. It was only 0.01% just a few years ago. According to Mike McGlone, this indicates a growing adoption of the new asset class. In addition, investors tend to buy gold during inflation, but now they have a digital alternative to it. Another reason is that the adoption of the asset occurs against the background of a reduction in its emission. This allowed the expert to conclude that prices could skyrocket in the coming years.

- The fall of bitcoin was one of the factors stimulating the growth in the number of addresses in the network with a balance of more than one coin. Glassnode estimates that investors stepped up in May and June during each pullback. In the last week alone, the number of such holders increased by 13,091. There are currently 865,254 addresses holding more than 1 BTC.
The number of small bitcoin holders has also grown significantly. The number of wallets holding at least 0.1 BTC has come close to 3.06 million since the beginning of last week. However, the number of "whales" with a balance of more than 100 coins has on the contrary decreased by 136 addresses.

- The Bangkok police arrested a suspect in a jewellery store robbery. According to Thai PBS, the man stole gold jewellery worth about 1.8 million baht (over $50,000) at gunpoint. After his arrest, he told the police that he was under great stress and was in dire need of money since he had recently suffered large losses from investing in bitcoin.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading - NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

Forex and Cryptocurrency Forecast for June 27 - July 1, 2022​

EUR/USD: Just a Calm Week

The last week was quite calm for the EUR/USD pair. It moved along the Pivot Point 1.0500, and the maximum range of fluctuations was less than 140 points (1.0468-1.0605), which is quite small for today.

President Joe Biden's appeal to the US Congress, with the exception of a proposal to introduce a tax holiday on fuel for 3 months, was, in fact, about nothing. And the federal tax on gasoline is only 18 cents per gallon, which is less than 4%. So, in such a short period of time, this measure will not have any effect on the economy, much less tame inflation.

As for the Fed, its head Jerome Powell, speaking in Congress, did not say anything new either. He only confirmed that, despite the threat of a recession, his organization will continue to fight inflation by tightening monetary policy. These intentions were also confirmed by Powell's colleague Michelle Bowman, a member of the Fed's Board of Governors, who stated that raising the key rate by 0.75% in July and by at least 0.50% at the next few meetings of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) is not only appropriate, but also necessary.

There were no surprises in the words of both officials, and the markets, apparently, have already included this increase in their quotes for a long time. However, the yield on 10-year US bonds corrected against this backdrop to the lowest level in the last two weeks, falling from 3.5% to 3%. Stock Markets (S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq), as well as other risky assets, on the contrary, grew slightly. This was facilitated by the absence of any significant events on the Ukrainian-Russian front and the associated decline in prices for natural energy resources. So, for example, the cost of oil has decreased by about 10-13% over the past 10 days.

The macro statistics released on Thursday, June 23, although caused an increase in volatility initially, eventually returned the EUR/USD pair to the equilibrium point like a swing. The reason is that business activity in both the EU and the US turned out to be noticeably worse than expected. In the Eurozone, the index of business activity in the manufacturing sector, according to the forecast, should have decreased from 54.6 to 54.0, but actually fell to 52.0 points. The index of business activity in the services sector has similar indicators: it fell from 56.1 to 52.8 instead of the expected 55.8 points. Thus, the composite index Markit lost 2.9 points instead of 0.6, falling from 54.8 to 51.9 (forecast 54.2).

Following the European one, the similar American statistics came out, which turned out to be no less disappointing. Thus, the index of business activity in the manufacturing sector fell by as much as 4.6 points to 52.4 (previous value 57.0, forecast 56.0). A similar indicator in the service sector turned out to be slightly better: a drop from 53.4 to 51.6 points (forecast 53.0). As a result, the composite index of business activity decreased from 53.6 to 51.2 points, instead of the forecasted 52.8 points.

EUR/USD ended the trading session at 1.0555. At the time of writing the review, on the evening of June 24, the votes of experts are divided as follows: 35% side with the bulls, 55% - with the bears, and 10% cannot decide on the forecast. The readings of the indicators on D1 look quite chaotic. Among the oscillators, 35% are colored red, 25% are green and 40% are neutral gray. Among the trend indicators, 60% are red and 40% are green. The nearest strong resistance is located in the 1.0600 zone, if successful, the bulls will try to break through the 1.0640 resistance and rise to the 1.0750-1.0770 zone, the next target is 1.0800. Apart from 1.0500, the number 1 task for the bears is to break through the support around 1.0470, and then update the May 13 low at 1.0350. If successful, they will move on to storm the 2017 low of 1.0340, there is only support from 20 years ago below.

As for the upcoming week, data on the US consumer market will be released on Monday June 27, the German consumer market data on June 29 and 30, and Eurozone consumer prices (CPI) on Friday July 01. The value of the US Manufacturing PMI will be published on July 01 as well. In addition, it is worth paying attention to the data on US GDP (Q1), which will become known on June 29. In addition, a whole series of speeches by the head of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, is scheduled for the week: she will speak on June 27, 28 and 29. There will also be a performance by her overseas colleague Jerome Powell, but only one, on Wednesday, June 29.

GBP/USD: Looking for Drivers

Having started the five-day period at 1.2216, the GBP/USD pair ends it at 1.2280. And if in the period from June 13 to June 17, the maximum range of fluctuations exceeded 470 points, it was 3 times less last week, keeping within just 160 points. This lull was caused largely by the absence of high-profile macroeconomic events. However, it also suggests that the market cannot decide what to do with the pound, and is looking for drivers that can move the pair in one direction or another.

According to some analysts, the strengthening of the British currency is hindered by political instability. Prime Minister Boris Johnson already survived a vote of no confidence in June, with several lawmakers from his own Conservative Party voting against him. In addition, after the by-elections, the party lost two seats in the UK Parliament.

In terms of the national economy, retail sales fell 0.5% m/m in May according to the Office for National Statistics. This turned out to be slightly better than market expectations, which predicted a decline of 0.7%. But it did not help the British currency much, as the annual figure reached 9.1%, updating the 40-year high. The main contribution to the growth of inflation was made by the increase in prices for fuel and food products.

According to some experts, inflation in the United Kingdom will continue to grow and may exceed 11% by November. It is clear that this causes discontent among the population, as it reduces the level of income, depreciates savings, and also undermines the current purchasing power. To combat this evil, the Bank of England (BOE) raised its key rate from 1.00% to 1.25% on June 16. As a result, the British currency gained 365 points in just a few hours. But can the regulator, just like the US Federal Reserve, not be afraid of the economy slipping into recession and continue to regularly increase the cost of borrowing? Many traders and investors doubt this.

At the moment, 40% of experts believe that the GBP/USD pair will try to test the resistance of 1.2400 again in the near future, 25%, on the contrary, are waiting for a support test in the 1.2170-1.2200 area, the remaining 35% of analysts have taken a neutral position.

Among the trend indicators on D1, the balance of power is 75-25% in favor of the reds. There is no such clear advantage among oscillators: only 45% are pointing to a fall, 25% are looking in the opposite direction, and the remaining 30% are looking east. Supports are located at levels 1.2170-1.2200, then 1.2075 and 1.2040. The pair's strong foothold lies at the psychologically important 1.2000 level, followed by the June 14 low at 1.1932. In case of growth, the pair will meet resistance in the zones and at the levels of 1.2300-1.2325, 1.2400-1.2430, 1.2460, then the targets in the area of 1.2500 and 1.2600 follow.

As for the macroeconomic events of the coming week regarding the United Kingdom, we can highlight the publication of data on the country's GDP for the Q1 2022 on Thursday, June 30. The speech of the Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey, which will take place the day before, on Wednesday, June 29, may also be of interest. And the business activity index (PMI) in the UK manufacturing sector will be published at the very end of the working week, on Friday, July 01.

USD/JPY: "Head" and "Shoulders" Are Visible. What's next?

The USD/JPY formed a classic technical analysis head and shoulders pattern over the past week. Starting from 134.95, it rose to the height of 136.70, then rolled back to the local low of 134.25, and finished at 135.20.

The divergence between the monetary policies of the Bank of Japan and the US Federal Reserve helped to update the 24-year high once again, having risen to 136.70 on Wednesday, June 22. We have already written about this many times. As for the subsequent rollback down, the reason is most likely the June decline in world prices for mineral fuels, on which the country's economy is highly dependent, as well as the fall in the yield of 10-year US Treasuries.

It is common knowledge that there is a direct correlation between 10-year US Treasury bills and the USD/JPY currency pair. And if the yield of these securities falls, the yen shows growth against the dollar, and the USD/JPY pair forms a downtrend. This is what we observed in the second half of the week, when the yield on government bonds fell to 3%.

Reuters reported that Japan's annual core consumer inflation in May exceeded the central bank's target of 2% in May for the second consecutive month. Which is a signal of increasing pressure on the fragile Japanese economy due to rising world prices for raw materials.

A number of experts believe that the forecast of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) about the temporary nature of price growth is incorrect. Hence, the “super-dove” monetary policy of the regulator is wrong. Rising fuel and food prices driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a weak yen that pushes up the cost of imports could keep inflation above the Bank of Japan's target for much of 2022, these analysts said.

Japanese officials do not deny this problem. Thus, the Government and the Bank of Japan issued a joint statement on June 17 stating that they are concerned about the sharp fall in the national currency. Seiji Kihara, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, also said that the impact of inflation on consumer sentiment will be closely monitored. However, according to Masayoshi Amamiya, Deputy Governor of the Japanese Central Bank, the country's economy is gaining momentum, so the BOJ will continue to adhere to a relaxed monetary credit policy.

Considering the above, the general fundamental background remains on the side of the USD/JPY bulls, and its current decline can be regarded as a correction from the previous multi-year highs, which was caused by lower fuel prices and a drop in Treasury yields.

Most analysts (50%) expect the correction to continue at least to the level of 133.00-133.50. 30% of experts have voted for the fact that the pair will once again try to renew the high and rise above 137.00, and 20% believe that the pair will take a breather, moving in a sideways trend. For indicators on D1, the picture is very different from the opinion of experts. 85% of the oscillators are colored green (of which 10% are in the overbought zone), the remaining 15% have taken a neutral position. For trend indicators, 85% point north and only 15% look south. The nearest support is located at 134.40, followed by zones and levels at 134.00, 133.50, 133.00, 132.30, 131.50, 129.70-130.30, 128.60 and 128.00. Apart from breaking the immediate resistance at 135.40 and the June 22 high at 136.70, further targets for the bulls are difficult to determine. Most often, such round levels as 137.00, 140.00 and 150.00 appear in the forecasts. And if the pair's growth rates remain the same as in the last 3 months, it will be able to reach the 150.00 zone in late August or early September.

As for the calendar for the coming week, we can mark Friday, July 01, when Tankan (Q2) sentiment indexes of large manufacturers and large non-manufacturing companies in Japan will be published.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: BTC Forecast from the President of El Salvador

We called the last review "Bloodbath or $20,000 Battle". As for the past week, there was not much blood this time, but the battle for $20,000, as predicted, did not subside. The week's low was fixed at $17,597, the maximum at $21,667, and the BTC/USD pair met Saturday, June 25, at $21,350. At this point, the total crypto market capitalization was $0.960 trillion ($0.895 trillion a week ago). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is still not going to leave the Extreme Fear zone and is at around 11 points out of 100 possible (7 points a week ago).

The general mood of the market is fully consistent with this Extreme Fear. The Internet is talking again about the death of bitcoin. According to Google Trends, the number of search queries on this topic has returned to its maximum levels, close to December 2017. Recall that at that moment, approaching the coveted $20,000, the main cryptocurrency turned around and flew down, losing more than 40% of its value in a few days. The only difference with that long-standing situation is that bitcoin was approaching the $20,000 level from below then, and it is from above now. And the market was looking for a top then, and for a bottom now. Moreover, according to a number of influencers, it is not at all necessary that the bottom is at this particular mark.

So, according to Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital President, a well-known cryptocurrency critic, “so far, there are no signs of surrender, which usually forms the bottom of the bearish market”. According to this gold supporter, the $20,000 mark will be the same “bull trap” as the $30,000 level was before. “Nothing falls in a straight line. It's actually a very ordered crash in slow motion," Schiff said. Recall that he predicted back in May that bitcoin would test $8,000. And he suggested in mid-June that the minimum could be even lower, around $5,000.

According to the president of Euro Pacific Capital, the collapse of the cryptocurrency market will be good for the economy. Kevin O'Leary, co-host of the business TV show Shark Tank, made a similar point. He believes that one should not be afraid of the bankruptcy of large companies during the crypto winter. “This is good for all other companies as they will learn from this. I think we will soon see a wave of bankruptcies in the cryptocurrency market. I don't know who it will be. Later you will recognize those who have taken a high-risk position. But I assure you I have seen this before. They have been destroyed, and that's good,” said the millionaire.

The InvestAnswers crypto channel, in turn, named 3 possible catalysts for a further market collapse. The BTC price may fall even more if MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor decides to sell the bitcoins in the company's reserves. In addition, the potential collapse of the stablecoin Tether (USDT) and the problems of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital may also contribute to further capitulation of BTC. According to InvestAnswers, we should not forget about the possible sale of crypto assets by Tesla.

MicroStrategy reported a $1.2 billion loss last week due to the fall of bitcoin. As for the Three Arrows Capital fund, it now has about $2.4 billion left in assets out of $18 billion.

Big problems are experienced not only by investors, but also by miners. Due to the fall in the price of BTC and the increase in computational complexity, the total return from mining is now 65% lower than the average for the year. At the same time, the efficiency of the Antminer S19 ASIC from Bitmain is 80% worse than the level of November 2021, and the popular S9 model has lost profitability altogether. This situation has led to the fact that mining companies are forced to sell their BTC holdings in order to pay off loans and cover current operating costs, which puts pressure on the market. Their remaining reserves are estimated at 46,000 coins (about $920 million). In the event that these bitcoins are also thrown into sale, quotes will certainly fall further down.

An analyst aka Capo, who had correctly predicted the collapse of the cryptocurrency market this year, updated his forecast. In his opinion, BTC expects a decline to $16,200, and ETH to $750. According to Capo, investors are fooling themselves into believing that a short-term rally means bitcoin is bottoming the cycle: “Bull trap. Funds from altcoins flow into BTC, which will also be sold, but a little later. There is no bottom yet,” he said.

According to another specialist, crypto strategist Kevin Svenson, bitcoin has a chance to bottom in the $17,000-18,000 range, after which a short-term rally to above $30,000 may occur. At the same time, although Svenson expects this short-term growth, he does not see the prerequisites for launching a new bull market in the near future: “Overcoming the main downward resistance is the main obstacle and the process may last until the end of the year.” According to the strategist, after the breakthrough of the diagonal resistance, bitcoin can trade in a narrow range for several months and start a new uptrend only by 2024 year.

Despite the low current rate of bitcoin, many participants in the crypto industry believe in its future growth. For example, there is a belief that BTC could reach $100,000 by 2025. One of those who supported such optimism was an analyst called PlanB, who built his forecasts based on the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model. This model worked well for three years until March 2022, after which it failed.

The Daily Gwei creator Anthony Sassano and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin have recently criticized S2F, advising PlanB to delete their account.

The analyst reacted to criticism with restraint. He said that in the aftermath of the crash, many are looking for scapegoats, including leaders. PlanB then presented a graph of five different BTC price prediction models. According to the illustration, the most accurate picture is given by estimates based on the complexity and cost of mining the first cryptocurrency. The S2F model, in turn, offers an overly optimistic view.

Another expert, Benjamin Cowen, proposed his bitcoin bottoming model. He believes that the bottom can be predicted based on the correlation of inflation, the S&P 500 stock index and the BTC price. The analyst argues that the S&P 500 index does not historically sink to the very bottom until inflation peaks and reverses. Accordingly, BTC cannot reach the bottom for the same reason. “Macroeconomic indicators look incredibly bleak at the moment. If you go back to the 1970s, you'll see a very similar type of move where the S&P bottomed just as inflation hit its first peak. By this point, the S&P was down about 50%,” writes Cowen.

And to conclude the review, one more “prediction model”, which we put in our humorous crypto life hacks section. It was presented by the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. “My advice is to stop looking at charts and enjoy your life. If you have invested in BTC, your investment is safe, its value will rise immeasurably after the end of the bear market. The main thing is patience,” he wrote. For reference, there are 2,301 BTC in El Salvador's public bitcoin fund, purchased at an average price of $43,900. Thus, at the moment, the loss on them is about 55%. But, according to the "model" of Nayiba Bukele, this "trifle" should not be paid attention to. The main thing is to get the most out of life!


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading | NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

CryptoNews of the Week

- Concerns about the crypto winter have not dampened investor interest in the industry. This is stated in the analytical report of Bank of America (BofA). “Customer engagement continues to grow. The focus continues to be on the rapid development of blockchain technology.” BofA believes regulatory clarity is critical to corporate and institutional outreach. Many are currently refraining from taking action until a comprehensive legal framework is in place.
Some participants in the BofA survey recalled that the most innovative projects came from previous market downturns. The low points of the cycle are "likely beneficial for the development of the ecosystem in the long run," they added.

- Cryptocurrency payments will become a reality in the future, but they are currently not economically efficient. This was stated in an interview with Cointelegraph by one of the directors of American Express, Gonzalo Pérez del Arco. According to him, crypto payments are not relevant for a number of reasons at the moment, including high transaction costs and the unwillingness of merchants to accept digital assets.

- The recession in the cryptocurrency market will last for about 18 more months, and the industry will see the first signs of recovery after the easing of the Fed’s monetary policy. This was stated by the head and founder of the Galaxy Digital cryptobank Mike Novogratz in an interview with New York Magazine. “I hope we have already seen the worst. I would be more confident about this if I knew what inflation would be like in the next two quarters. [...] I think the Fed will have to abandon the rate hike by the fall, and I believe that will make people calm down and start building again,” said the head of Galaxy Digital.
According to Novogratz, the crisis has changed people's attitudes towards high-risk assets like cryptocurrencies. He noted that the past few months have shown the industry's dependence on leverage, which no one knew about. And it will take time now for the bankruptcy of weak players and the sale of collapsed assets. According to the head of Galaxy Digital, the situation is similar to the global financial crisis of 2008, followed by a wave of consolidation in the investment and banking industries.

- Mining companies in need of liquidity in Q3 are able to continue to exert downward pressure on the quotes of the first cryptocurrency. This is the conclusion reached by JPMorgan strategist Nikolaos Panigirtsoglou, Bloomberg writes. According to the expert's calculations, public mining companies account for about 20% of the hash rate. Many of them sold bitcoins to cover operating expenses and service loans. Due to the more limited access to capital, private miners took similar steps as well. “Unloading will continue in Q3, if the profitability of production does not improve. This was already evident in May and June. There is a risk that the process will continue,” the strategist believes.
According to Panigirtzoglou, the cost of mining 1 BTC dropped from $18,000-$20,000 at the beginning of the year to about $15,000 in June due to the introduction of more energy-efficient equipment.

- The first cryptocurrency is “technically oversold”, if you look at the current price in the context of the exponential growth in wallet activity and an increase in the number of use cases. This was stated by Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of the SkyBridge Capital investment fund. The hedge fund manager advised investors to evaluate bitcoin in retrospect. With this approach, the asset will turn out to be "very cheap due to excess leverage, which is worth taking advantage of."
Scaramucci was philosophical about the collapse of Terra, which he had supported, as well as Three Arrows Capital's liquidity problems. “I have seen such mistakes made several times,” he explained. According to the financier, during periods of "easy money", when new industries or technologies are being formed, young representatives of the sector "tend to lose relevance."

- Crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen doubts that the forecasts for a high BTC rate for 2023 can come true. In particular, he spoke about the forecast of venture capital investor Tim Draper, according to which the price of bitcoin could grow by more than 1000% from current levels and reach $250,000.
“I used to believe that BTC would be above $100,000 by 2023, but now I am skeptical about this idea. Especially after the Fed's policy has changed so much over the past six months,” Cowen wrote. "I also look at other things, like social media statistics, and I see that the number of people interested in cryptocurrencies is in a downtrend. If it is difficult for people to buy gasoline, it will be even more difficult to buy bitcoin.”
Instead of a huge rally, Cowen predicts an uninteresting BTC market over the next two years: “I think the bear market will end this year, and then the accumulation phase will begin, as in 2015 and 2019. Then there will be slow preparations for the next bitcoin halving, and the Fed may lower interest rates due to the victory over inflation during this period.”

- According to the cryptanalytic platform CryptoQuant, most cyclical indicators (Bitcoin Puell Multiple, MVRV, SOPR and the MPI BTC Miner Position Index) indicate that bitcoin is close to the bottom. The readings of these indicators are based on a historical pattern that has preceded an uptrend several times. Indicators also suggest that bitcoin is currently undervalued, signaling an imminent rally. A significant amount of unrealized losses confirms this forecast.

- A crypto strategist with aka Dave the Wave, who had previously predicted the May collapse of bitcoin in 2021, expects to see a rapid increase in the BTC rate in the coming years. He uses a logarithmic growth curve (LGC) model and believes that BTC can grow by 1100% within 4 years and reach $260,000. In the short term, Dave the Wave predicts the possibility of bitcoin rising to $25,000.

- Robert Kiyosaki predicted the collapse of the financial markets in autumn 2021. In his opinion, due to the actions of the US financial regulators, the value of all assets, including bitcoin, gold and securities, should have collapsed. Now, the author of the bestselling book Rich Dad Poor Dad predicts another 95% drop in bitcoin and is waiting for bitcoin to drop to $1,100. And when “the losers capitulate and leave the market,” according to the economist, he will replenish his stocks of the first cryptocurrency.
Recall that Kiyosaki has previously repeatedly stated that the US dollar is dying, and called for buying more BTC, gold and silver, because, according to him, these assets help to ride out hard times.

- It is possible that the long-standing dispute over whether cryptocurrencies are securities or commodities will be put to an end. In an interview with CNBC, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler stated that, according to his ideas, bitcoin meets all the characteristics of a commodity. The head of the SEC noted that his opinion concerns only bitcoin, and he is not going to discuss other cryptocurrencies.
A similar view was expressed a month earlier by Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Rostin Behnam, who also said that bitcoin and ethereum are commodities.
The cryptocurrency community enthusiastically supported the position: “This makes it almost impossible to change this classification in the future,” digital asset manager Eric Weiss tweeted.

- Yifan He, CEO of Chinese blockchain company Red Date Technology, published an article comparing cryptocurrencies to pyramid schemes. He mentioned the May collapse of the Terra project, when the LUNA crypto asset fell to almost zero in just a few days, and the UST token lost its peg to the dollar.
In his opinion, all crypto assets are similar to a Ponzi scheme, it’s just that each has its own level of risk, depending on the market capitalization and the number of users. He added that he has never had a cryptocurrency wallet, has not bought cryptocurrencies and does not intend to buy them in the future. Even if digital assets become regulated by governments, this is unlikely to increase their value, He said.
The businessman believes that the authorities of El Salvador and the Central African Republic (CAR), who decided to legalize bitcoin, are in serious need of basic financial education. According to He, the leaders of these states put entire countries at risk, unless their original intention was to fraud their own citizens.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading | NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

June Results: NordFX's Most Prolific Trader and Partner Earned 24,000 USD Each

NordFX Brokerage company has summed up the performance of its clients' trade transactions in June 2022. The services of social trading, PAMM and CopyTrading, as well as the profit received by the company's IB-partners have also been assessed.

The highest profit in June was received by a client from Southeast Asia, account No. 1620XXX, whose profit amounted to 24,665 USD. This solid result was achieved thanks to trades in gold (XAU/USD).

The second place in the rating of the most successful traders of the month was occupied by their compatriot, account No. 1552XXX, who earned 11,405 USD on transactions in the USD/JPY currency pair.

The third place on the June podium went to the representative of East Asia (account No. 1440XXX), whose result of 10,904 USD was also achieved through transactions with gold (XAU/USD).

The situation in NordFX passive investment services is as follows:

- in CopyTrading, the “veteran” KennyFXPRO - Journey of $205 to $5,000 signal is again noticeable, which has shown a profit of 345% over the period since March 2021 with a maximum drawdown of about 67%. At the same time, it should be noted that this drawdown occurred quite a long time ago, in mid-October 2021. Other signals from this provider include KennyFXPRO - Prismo 2K (for 422 days of its life, the profit on it was 157% with a drawdown of just over 45%) and KennyFXPRO - The Cannon Ball. This signal appeared on the CopyTrading showcase 90 days ago, the trading style is non-aggressive, the profit is moderate, about 25%, but the drawdown is less than 7%. Favorite pairs are still the same: AUD/NZD (58%), NZD/CAD (36%) and AUD/CAD (16%).
Quite a few interesting signals have recently appeared among startups. Here are just a few of them: TraderViet9999 (profit 39% / max drawdown 7% / life days15), Ăn ít no lâu dài (34%/11%/49), BSTAR (46%/14%/132), Tịnh Tâm -CN88 (65%/20%/10). JFX TRADING - GOLD SIGNAL (76%/23%/16), Tịnh Tâm- CN88 (64%/20%/10). These signals have quite impressive results. However, it should be understood that they have been achieved thanks to very aggressive trading. Therefore, if someone decides to subscribe, be sure to take the risk factors into account. One of the main factors in this case is a very short lifetime of these signals.

- The TOP-3 in the PAMM service has not changed over the past month. The leader is still the same manager under the nickname KennyFXPRO. In 521 days on his KennyFXPRO-The Multi 3000 EA account, they increased their capital by 118%. Also, in the top three remain: the account TranquilityFX-The Genesis v3, which has shown a profit of 89% in 453 days, and the account NKFX-Ninja 136, which has generated a 76% return since June 11, 2021.
There are two more accounts that we have paid attention to. The first one, COEX.Investment – Treis, has shown a profit of 39% from October 31, 2021. The second one, Ultimate.Duo-Safe Haven, has started relatively recently, at the end of February. It has made a profit of about 29% during this time. The maximum drawdown on all five listed accounts is quite moderate, about 20%.

Among the IB partners, NordFX TOP-3 is as follows:
- the largest commission amount, 24,700 USD, was credited in June to a partner from Southeast Asia, account No. 1371XXX;
- next is a partner from South Asia, account No.1259XXX, who received 4,981 USD;
- and, finally, a partner from South Asia, account No. 1565ХХХ, who received 4,930 USD as a reward, closes the top three.


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading | NordFX

 

[Stan NordFX]

Forex and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for July 04 - 08, 2022​

EUR/USD: The Dollar Is Gaining Strength Again

The EUR/USD pair moved in a sideways channel of 1.0500-1.0600 for a week and a half. However, it is clear that neither investors nor speculators are interested in such stagnation. But some kind of trigger is needed to break out of it.

The last meeting of the G7 leaders and the NATO summit did not have any particularly loud statements. At both events, a desire was expressed to continue helping Ukraine in its military confrontation with Russia, and the NATO bloc was replenished with two new members, Sweden and Finland. But these results were not enough to somehow influence the quotes of the dollar and the euro.

The trigger for the strengthening of the dollar, which forced the EUR/USD pair to go south on Tuesday, June 28 and break through the lower limit of the channel the next day, was the growth in demand for protective assets amid concerns about the prospects for the world economy. And taking into account the fact that the American currency has recently acted as a protective asset, the scales have tilted in its direction.

Speaking at the annual forum of the European Central Bank in Sintra, Portugal, ECB President Christine Lagarde said that “inflation expectations in the Eurozone are much higher than before”, that “we are unlikely to return to conditions of low inflation soon”, and that the regulator “will go as far as necessary to reduce inflation to the target of 2%”. Christine Lagarde confirmed that the ECB intends to raise its key interest rate by 0.25% at its meeting on July 21 in order to achieve this goal. However, according to market participants, such a modest step is unlikely to have any serious effect. And the next meeting of the Bank will take place only in autumn, on September 08. So, most likely, inflation will continue to grow during this period.

The speech of US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who participated in the ECB forum as a colleague and guest of honor, was quite different in tone from the words of Christine Lagarde. The American assured the audience that the US economy is in a good position to cope with the active tightening of monetary policy, which is being implemented by his department.

The divergence between the ECB's careful monetary policy and the hawkish Fed has always been interpreted by the market in favor of the dollar. The same happened this time as well, and the EUR/USD pair continued its fall.

The European currency was slightly helped by weak macro data from the US in the second half of June 30. The impetus for a temporary rise in the pair was the release of data on GDP, which turned out to be less than expected, falling by 1.6% instead of the expected 1.5%. In addition, statistics showed a slowdown in economic growth rates from 5.5% to 3.5%. Data on basic spending on personal consumption in the United States did not live up to expectations either. Data on applications for unemployment benefits in the United States turned out to be noticeably worse than expected. Thus, the number of initial requests should have been reduced from 233K to 218K. However, their number decreased to only 231 thousand. The situation is similar with repeated requests, which decreased from 1.331K to just 1.328K.

However, all of the above negative factors provided only temporary support to the European currency. Fixing quarterly profit on the dollar did not help it much, and it went on the offensive again on Friday. The publication of data on inflation in the Eurozone, which accelerated from 8.1% to 8.6%, only speeded up the flight of investors to safe assets. As a result, the pair fixed a local bottom at 1.0364 and ended the five-day period at 1.0425.

The votes of experts at the time of writing the review, on the evening of July 01, are divided as follows: 35% side with the bulls, 50% - with the bears, and 15% are neutral. Among the oscillators on D1, 75% are red, 10% are green, and 15% are neutral gray. Trend indicators have 100% on the red side. The nearest resistance is located in the zone 1.0470-1.0500, then the zone 1.0600-1.0615 follows, in case of success the bulls will try to rise to the zone 1.0750-1.0770, the next target is 1.0800. Except for 1.0400, the bears' task number 1 is to break through the support zone 1.0350-1.0364, formed by the lows of May 13 and July 01. If successful, they will move on to storm the 2017 low of 1.0340, below is only 20-year-old support and the cherished goal, 1:1 parity.

This coming week, July 04 is a public holiday in the USA: the country celebrates Independence Day. Statistics on retail sales in the Eurozone will be released on Wednesday, July 06. The publication on the same day of the ISM index of business activity in the US services sector and the minutes of the June meeting of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) are also noteworthy. A similar minute of the ECB meeting and the ADP report on the level of employment in the US private and non-farm sectors and the number of initial applications for unemployment benefits will be published on Thursday, July 07. And another portion of data from the US labor market will arrive on Friday, October 08, including such important indicators as the unemployment rate and the number of new jobs created outside the agricultural sector (NFP).

GBP/USD: Similarities and Differences with EUR/USD

GBP /USD showed similar dynamics to EUR/USD last week. The reasons for the ups and downs of quotes are also similar. Therefore, it makes no sense to list them again. The pair moved clamped in the side channel 1.2165-1.2325 for a week and a half, and then flew down on June 28. A breakdown of support at 1.2100 increased bearish pressure, and it recorded a two-week low at 1.1975. This was followed by a correction to the north, and the pair finished at 1.2095;

Despite the fact that the euro and the pound behaved similarly against the dollar, there are still differences between them. The position of the Eurozone economy is complicated by a heavy dependence on Russian natural energy, the supply of which is limited due to sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. The situation is gradually improving: it became known that the United States bypassed Russia in gas supplies to Europe in June, for the first time. However, the final solution of the energy problem is still far away.

Unlike the EU, the UK's dependence on Russian energy is minimal. However, the strengthening of the British currency is hampered by political instability. Prime Minister Boris Johnson already survived a vote of no confidence in June, with several lawmakers from his own Conservative Party voting against him. In addition, after the by-elections, the party lost two seats in the UK Parliament. Problems associated with Brexit also add nervousness. The British pound came under additional pressure after MPs approved a bill allowing ministers to cancel part of the Northern Ireland protocol.

As for the country's economy, according to some experts, inflation in the United Kingdom will continue to grow and may exceed 11% by November.

At the moment, 60% of experts believe that the pair GBP/USD will try to consistently test the support of 1.1975 and 1.1932 in the near future. 40%, on the contrary, are waiting for a breakdown of the resistance at 1.2100 and further to the north. Among the trend indicators on D1, the power ratio is 100:0% in favor of the reds. Among the oscillators, the advantage of the bears is slightly less: 75% indicate a fall, the remaining 25% have turned their eyes to the east. Strong support lies at 1.2000, followed by lows of July 01 at 1.1975 and of June 14 at 1.1932. The bears' medium-term target may be the March 2020 low of 1.1409. In case of growth, the pair will meet resistance in the zones and at the levels of 1.2100, 1.2160-1.2175, 1.2200-1.2235, 1.2300-1.2325, 1.2400-1.2430, 1.2460, then the targets in the area of 1.2500 and 1.2600 follow.

As for the macroeconomic calendar for the UK, we advise you to pay attention to Tuesday, July 05, when the speech of the head of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey is expected. The composite PMI index and the index of business activity in the UK services sector will be published on the same day, and the index of business activity in the construction sector of this country a day later.

USD/JPY: Just a Breather or a Change in Trend?

USD/JPY hit a new 24-year high last week once again, climbing to a high of 136.99 on Wednesday June 29. However, the difference from the previous high of June 22 is less than 30 points, and the two-week chart already looks more like a sideways channel than an uptrend. Perhaps the strength of the bulls has dried up and they, at least, need a break.

And perhaps, finally, the long-awaited dream of Japanese importers and housewives will come true, and the yen will go on the offensive, regaining the status of a popular safe-haven currency? It's possible. But not guaranteed. The difference between the super-dove monetary policy of the Central Bank of Japan and the distinctly hawkish monetary policy of the US Central Bank is too great.

Most analysts (50%) still expect the pair to move down at least to the 129.50-131.00 zone. 30% of experts vote for the fact that the pair will once again try to renew the maximum and rise above 137.00, and 20% believe that the pair will take a breather, moving in the side channel 134.50-137.00. For indicators on D1, the picture is very different from the opinion of experts. For oscillators, 65% are colored green (of which 10% are in the overbought zone), the remaining 35% have taken a neutral position. For trend indicators, 65% point north as well, and only 35% point south. The nearest support is located at 134.50-134.75, followed by zones and levels at 134.00, 133.50, 133.00, 132.30, 131.50, 129.70-130.30, 128.60 and 128.00. Apart from overcoming the immediate resistance at 136.00-136.35 and taking the height of 137.00, it is difficult to determine further targets for the bulls. Most often, such round levels as 137.00, 140.00 and 150.00 appear in the forecasts. And if the pair's growth rates remain the same as in the last 3 months, it will be able to reach the 150.00 zone in late August or early September.

No important events, be it the release of macroeconomic statistics or political factors, are expected in Japan this week.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: Will Bitcoin Drop to $1,100? We look at the US Federal Reserve.

The battle for $20,000 continued throughout the second half of June. The BTC/USD pair fell to $17,940, then rose to $21,940. It should be noted that $20,000 is historically the most important level for the main cryptocurrency. Suffice it to recall the catastrophic crash of December 2017, when bitcoin approached this mark, reaching a height of $19,270, and then collapsed by 84%. Many experts expect something similar now, predicting a further fall of another 50-80% for the BTC/USD pair. And Robert Kiyosaki, author of the bestselling book Rich Dad Poor Dad, predicts an even more powerful collapse of bitcoin, by 95%, to $1,100.

In the meantime (Friday evening, July 01), the coin is trading in the $19,440 zone. The total capitalization of the crypto market at this moment is $0.876 trillion ($0.960 trillion a week ago). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, like a week ago, is in the Extreme Fear zone at around 11 points out of 100 possible.

If you look at the charts, you can see that the bears had a clear advantage over the past week. And, in fairness, we note that bitcoin itself is not really to blame for this. It's all about the strengthening of the dollar, which is growing due to the rise in rates and the tightening of the monetary policy of the US Central Bank. In such a situation, investors prefer to get rid of risky assets by purchasing US currency. Global stock markets are under pressure from sellers, the MSCI World and MSCI EM indices are going down, showing the situation in developed and emerging markets, respectively. Among the developed markets, the main pressure fell on the European sites, but did not bypass he US either: the S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq Composite, with which BTC is in direct correlation, are also moving south.

Additional downward pressure on the quotes of the first cryptocurrency is exerted by mining companies in need of liquidity. According to JPMorgan bank strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, this situation will continue in Q3 of 2022. According to the expert's calculations, public mining companies account for about 20% of the hash rate. Many of them sold bitcoins to cover operating expenses and service loans. Due to the more limited access to capital, private miners took similar steps as well. “Unloading will continue in Q3, if the profitability of production does not improve. This was already evident in May and June. There is a risk that the process will continue,” the JPMorgan strategist believes.

According to Bloomberg, the cost of mining 1 BTC from $18,000-$20,000 at the beginning of the year dropped to about $15,000 in June due to the introduction of more energy-efficient equipment. However, it is not yet clear whether this will be enough for the stable functioning of the miners.

The recession in the cryptocurrency market will last for about 18 more months, and the industry will see the first signs of recovery after the easing of the Fed’s monetary policy. This was stated by the head and founder of the Galaxy Digital crypto bank Mike Novogratz in an interview with New York Magazine. “I hope we have already seen the worst. I would be more confident about this if I knew what inflation would be like in the next two quarters. [...] I think the Fed will have to abandon the rate hike by the fall, and I believe that will make people calm down and start building again,” said the head of Galaxy Digital.

According to Novogratz, the crisis has changed people's attitudes towards high-risk assets like cryptocurrencies. He noted that the past few months have shown the industry's dependence on leverage, which no one knew about. And it will take time now for the bankruptcy of weak players and the sale of collapsed assets. According to the head of Galaxy Digital, the situation is similar to the global financial crisis of 2008, followed by a wave of consolidation in the investment and banking industries.

Crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen doubts that the forecasts for a high BTC rate for 2023 can come true. In particular, he spoke about the forecast of venture capital investor Tim Draper, according to which the price of bitcoin could grow by more than 1000% from current levels and reach $250,000.

“I used to believe that BTC would be above $100,000 by 2023, but now I am skeptical about this idea. Especially after the Fed's policy has changed so much over the past six months,” Cowen wrote. "I also look at other things, like social media statistics, and I see that the number of people interested in cryptocurrencies is in a downtrend. If it is difficult for people to buy gasoline, it will be even more difficult to buy bitcoin.”

Instead of a huge rally, Cowen predicts an uninteresting BTC market over the next two years: “I think the bear market will end this year, and then the accumulation phase will begin, as in 2015 and 2019. Then there will be slow preparations for the next bitcoin halving, and the Fed may lower interest rates due to the victory over inflation during this period.”

It is clear that many forecasts depend on the models, indicators and other analysis tools used. For example, we wrote a week ago how the creator of The Daily Gwei, Anthony Sassano, and the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, criticized the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, on the basis of which a popular analyst aka PlanB issued his forecasts. Following criticism, PlanB has unveiled a chart of not one, but five different forecasting models. Indeed, S2F showed an overly optimistic view. The most accurate picture was given by estimates based on the complexity and costs of mining the first cryptocurrency.

Another analyst named Dave the Wave uses a logarithmic growth curve (LGC) model and believes that BTC can grow by 1100% within 4 years and reach $260,000. In the short term, Dave the Wave predicts the possibility of bitcoin rising to $25,000.

According to the cryptanalytic platform CryptoQuant, most cyclical indicators (Bitcoin Puell Multiple, MVRV, SOPR and the MPI BTC Miner Position Index) indicate that bitcoin is close to the bottom. The readings of these indicators are based on a historical pattern that has preceded an uptrend several times. Indicators also suggest that bitcoin is currently undervalued, signaling an imminent rally. A significant amount of unrealized losses confirms this forecast.

Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of SkyBridge Capital investment fund, also said that the first cryptocurrency is “technically oversold”. He made this conclusion by analyzing the current BTC price in the context of an exponential growth in wallet activity and an increase in the number of use cases. At the same time, the hedge fund manager advised investors to evaluate bitcoin in retrospect. With this approach, the asset will turn out to be "very cheap due to excess leverage, which is worth taking advantage of."

We talked at the end of the previous review about another “forecasting model” presented by the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. “My advice is to stop looking at charts and enjoy your life. If you have invested in BTC, your investment is safe, its value will rise immeasurably after the end of the bear market. The main thing is patience,” the head of state wrote.

And now Yifan He, CEO of Chinese blockchain company Red Date Technology, has responded to this advice. He compared cryptocurrencies to financial pyramids and stated that the authorities of El Salvador and the Central African Republic (CAR), who decided to legalize bitcoin, are in serious need of basic education in finance. According to He, the leaders of these states put entire countries at risk, unless their original intention was to fraud their own citizens. It is not yet known whether Naib Bukele was offended by such words. We will follow the news.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

Forex | Forex Trading | NordFX