EQUOS — Morning Update — October 12th
Last Friday, equities closed the US session higher, thanks to hopes of a fiscal stimulus agreement. This morning in Asia, S&P futures slipped and shares in HK, Australia and Japan look set for a mixed start.
A notable news is affecting currency markets. China, which a few years ago had imposed restrictions on yuan trading when it was weakening too much (towards 7 per dollar), is now doing the opposite as the yuan strengthens too much. Chinese institutions will no longer need to set aside cash when purchasing foreign exchange for clients through currency forwards.
It’s worth reminding that in the world of cryptocurrencies, such rules and manipulation just couldn’t happen, for better or for worse.
Right now, BTC is doing great. After a pennant narrowing towards the $10,500 (discussed in previous briefings), we’ve now broken out to the upside -almost touching $10,500 over the weekend- currently at $10,380 (up about 3.3% in the past two days).
Alts are naturally benefiting from the enthusiasm: ETH is up about 3.5% over the weekend (or up about 7% from Friday’s open). LINK is -safely- above $10, up about 5.3%. LTC had a massive surge, up ~6.5% over the past two days. ADA rose 6.7%. XMR outperformed most large market cap coins, rising 8.9% after what had already been a torrid ramp up. ZEC did even better, with a 14.6% rise over the weekend.
Other alts also rose but in a less explosive manner. I’m thinking of XTZ, XLM, DOT, BCH, BNB, BAT, XRP, NEO or BSV.
It’s interesting to see those moves happening around this time. There’s plenty of negatives with John McAfee arrested but more importantly the BitMEX woes we’ve been following, and also the FCA ban of crypto derivatives in the UK. Yet, investors are focused on more positive trends, notably the growing cohort of traditional firms investing or allocating some of their balance sheet to crypto currencies -thinking of course of Square’s $50 Mil investment but also previously MicroStrategy or, before that, Harvard Management. Let’s see what happens when more of them join.
