Bitcoin’s fall from grace & FAANG’s bear market

A really rough week coming to end would be like putting it very nicely… it was literally a bloodbath on the financial markets. As the weekend rolls in, we can take stock of things. Cryptos continued to bleed after taking out significant support levels, U.S equities closed the worst Thanksgiving week since 2011 & Greenback sprung back to life with the general risk-off sentiment in the markets. Here’s a quick look at the numbers before we move on.

Let’s kick off things with Cryptocurrencies as usual. The digital coins continued to post hefty losses amid a complete rout that started last week. Most of the Cryptos made new yearly lows. It seems like it is going to be a tale of two holiday seasons with the last one (2017) taking the Cryptos to the moon & this one (2018) taking them to depths of oblivion. There have been a lot of stories circulating about the reasons behind this plummet. Bitcoin Cash hard fork resulting in a ‘hash-war’ which has gathered pace, regulatory pressures from the Financial authorities & central banks’ interest in pursuing their own digital currency projects after a statement from the IMF chief last week. Also the most anticipated

Looking at the hourly chart for the Bitcoin, it has taken out the significant psychological level of $5,000 with the total market cap of the Cryptos dropping down to a mere $138 billion, a drop of more than 30% in the last week alone. The $5K level is now acting as the immediate resistance for BTC below which the gains should stay capped. A break above this would signal an extended consolidation but as long the strong resistance of $5600-$5800 holds we should continue to see weakness. Only a convincing break of this zone would signal a return to bullish ways.

Global Equities saw widespread losses as well led by the U.S markets, whose major indices closed down 4%. The rout in U.S equities have been led by the Big techs — ironically, the same sector which powered the 10-year-old bull run, which at the moment, seems to be running out of steam. All the FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix & Google) stocks have now entered the bearish territory with losses of over 20% (see the figure below — as of 11/21).

Losses have been pretty widespread across different sectors of the market. The biggest loser so far has been Oil. The Thanksgiving week saw the commodity post a heft loss of over 11% of whom 7% came on the last day alone. Global growth concerns are putting severe pressure on Crude as it accelerates its bearish momentum. Analyzing the benchmark S&P 500, it looks as if it has resumed its downward trend after failing to hold the higher low from last week. The index continues to trend downwards in a bearish channel with immediate resistance around 2690 which needs to break to extend the consolidation. However, only a break of the previous high around 2815 would signal a creation of a base and the resumption of the upward trend. Declining RSI & bearish MACD divergence is pointing towards further losses for now.

Coming to the Forex markets, Greenback gained ground against all the Majors with the traders opting for the security of the Reserve currency in the bearish markets. Bearishness in other markets generally means USD bulls have a heyday — and that’s what we see in the FX markets right now. Reviewing the Dollar Index chart, USD continues to honor the floor of the bullish channel by making a higher low every time to march forward. Immediate support lies around 95.70 which needs to hold to continue this bullish trend towards the previous high of 97.65. A break of this support would signal an extended consolidation. Major support of 93.50 needs to hold for the medium-term trend to stay intact, a breach of which signal the start of a new bearish trend.

There were some significant individual moves in the USD Majors that I would like to touch base about. The first one being GBPUSD which has taken the brunt from the Brexit inspired political & economic uncertainty. The elevated volatility continues to mark the moves of this pair; which can only get a meaningful direction with the settlement of the Brexit issue — intraday resistance @ 1.2845. EURUSD’s technical rebound seems to be coming to an end with the weak PMI numbers from Germany — Europe’s biggest economy. A temporary top seems to be in place @ 1.1472 with immediate intraday resistance @ 1.1360. Finally, USDCAD seems to have nowhere to run with the current bearish run in Oil with which this pair has an inverse relationship. Bullish momentum is intact for the pair with the intraday support @ 1.3180. USD Durable goods orders, EU OECD outlook & CAD CPI mark the economic calendar next week as significant data events.

To sign off here is a comic which signifies correctly what happened to the bulls in the Thanksgiving week! Happy Trading everyone…

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