EQUOS — Morning Update — November 16th
Last Friday, we saw global equities essentially reach pre-pandemic levels and, in the US, the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500 both rally to all-time highs. The advances made to create a vaccine bode well for the real economy. Tech-heavy indexes like the Nasdaq relatively underperformed.
The news this Monday morning focuses on Asia, though. Over the weekend 15 nations (including Australia and New-Zealand) signed a regional free trade agreement encompassing a third of the world’s population and GDP. The accord will reduce tariffs, strengthen supply chain, and codify e-commerce rules.
Onto crypto — It’s been a muddy price action couple of days. After reaching multi-year highs on Friday and Saturday, up to $16,480, we dropped down to $15,670 only to recoup partially, bouncing up (but still in the red) at $15,970. It was interesting to see the RSI on the 4h and 12h chart, showing an enduring bearish divergence suggesting that, unless there’s more fundamental news to fuel the rally, we might be losing some steam.
ETH reached September highs, at $475 but ended up down as well, falling around 6%, to $450.
Most alts followed ETH’s example and turned red over the weekend. Most of the newer coins and privacy coins fell in a more pronounced way while larger cap coins held up somewhat -but still underperforming BTC.
Now, away from pure price action.
The news that will have caught people’s attention the most is this: PayPal reached volumes close to those of Binance.US’s (about 80% to be exact) so soon after releasing its crypto services. This is a great indicator of enthusiasm for the asset class, but understandable when one considers the size of PayPal’s customer base.
Two pieces of news peaked my interest more, however: 1. Cynthia Lummis, a crypto-friendly US senator interviewed on ABC, and mentioned that she definitely wants to bring BTC into the political and economic conversation (that’s big) and, 2. China Construction Bank selling bonds for Bitcoin (about $3 B worth), which prepares financial institutions across Asia for actual use and a real focus on crypto. Watch out for when it all rockets up.
