MARKETS week ahead: August 26 – 31Last week in the news
“The time has come for policy to adjust” were the words of Fed Chair Powell which marked the previous week impacting strongly market sentiment. Almost all markets reacted positively to a potential Feds pivoting point, with S&P 500 gaining 1,45% for the week and nearing its all time highest level from July this year. The US Dollar continued to lose strength, supporting the price of gold, which gained 1% during the week, ending it with a new ATH at the level of $2.530. In a quest for riskier assets, the crypto market also gained, with BTC reaching levels modestly below the $ 65K resistance line. The 10Y US Treasuries dropped to the level of 3,79% as of the end of the week.
The main event during the previous week was a Wyoming Jackson Hole Symposium, where Fed Chair Powell held a speech. Each year this event is closely watched by markets in order to get a glimpse of potential future policy moves. This year's symposium was especially important, as Fed Chair Powell for the first time used the wording “the time has come for policy to adjust”, as inflation of 2,5% is on a track of Feds targeted 2%. This was a confirmation of market expectations that the potential first rate cut might occur at September's FOMC meeting. It should be noted that Fed Chair Powell did not comment on the exact timing of the policy adjustment, nor for how many basis points. The market is currently occupied with a question whether it will be 25 or 50 basis points.
Guests at the Jackson Hole Symposium were also representatives of the European Central Bank. its Chief economist, Philip Lane noted that the ECB is doing a good job in bringing inflation down to targeted 2%, however, the return to this target is still not assured. On the other side are analysts who are betting that the ECB would have to cut in September and again in December, considering that the environment of high interest rates is already significantly hurting growth of the EuroZone.
The CrowdStrike outage occurred this year, affecting millions of computers using Microsoft operating systems, and left a major question over the security and stability of operating programs like MS. In order to discuss challenges like this, Microsoft is organizing a cybersecurity event with CrowdStriek and other security companies in order to discuss potential solutions so that such events never again happen in the future. The conference will be held in September at MS campus in Redmond.
In a run for presidency, Donald Trump is certainly counting on the crypto community. As news are reporting, he first proclaimed himself as pro-crypto candidate, and now he is promoting a family-run DeFi project “The DeFiant ones” on his social platform. Although the platform is still pending official launch, there are already 40.000 followers subscribed.
Crypto market cap
The Fed Chair Powell mimicking potential rate cut in the coming period, at Jackson Hole Symposium was also positive for the crypto market. As investors are expecting that the environment of decreasing interest rates would impact funds currently placed at money market funds at rates around 5% would soon start to seek asset classes where they can make higher profits. One of such asset classes is certainly the crypto coins, especially BTC and ETH which entered into the mainstream through exchange traded funds. Although the crypto market spends the first half of the week at side trading, still at the end of the week the crypto market is finishing mostly within green territory. Total crypto market capitalization was increased by 9%, mostly as of the end of the week, adding $177B to its market cap. Daily trading volumes were also significantly increased to the level of $160B on a daily basis, compared to $ 95B traded a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase from the end of the previous year currently stands at $589B, which represents a 36% surge from the beginning of this year.
Almost all coins finished the week in green. The market was led by BTC, which increased its market cap by $97B or 8.3% on a weekly basis. BTC was followed by ETH, which managed to add $22.4B to its total market cap, increasing it by 7.1%. XRP should be mentioned as the coin added almost $ 3B to its value within a single week, increasing it by 9.3%. This week Tether managed to add a figure above $ 1B to its cap, which was a weekly increase of 0.9%. Cardano performed very well during the week, with an increase of $2.3B in the value or 19.3%. Binance Coin was also one of the significant weekly winners, with a surge in value of $7.3B or 9.3%. Market bellowed Solana was also in the spotlight, as the coin added almost $ 10B to its market cap, which was an increase of almost 15% w/w. Polygon had an incredible week, with a surge of almost 42% in value. There are a significant number of other altcoins which managed to gain more than 20% on a weekly basis. Interestingly, there were also only a few weekly losers, like Bitcoin Gold, which was down by 9% w/w, or ZCash, dropping by 1.4%.
There has also been some increased activity when coins in circulation are in question. The highest weekly gainer is certainly Tether, with a surge of 0.9% of circulating coins on a weekly basis. IOTA is also posting some increased activity lately, with a weekly increase of 0.6% of circulating coins. This week Polygon and Filecoin added 0.3% more coins to the market, while Polkadot added 0.2% more coins.
Crypto futures market
This week the crypto futures market managed to align with the spot market and follow the investors sentiment. Both BTC and ETH futures posted an increase in futures value from the previous week. BTC both short and long term futures were traded by around 7% higher from the week before. Futures maturing in December this year posted an increase of almost 10% on a weekly basis, ending the week at the level of $65.735. Futures maturing a year later were last traded at price $72.692.
Similar situation was with ETH futures. The short term ones were traded higher by more than 5% on a weekly basis, while the longer term ones were traded higher by some 4.6%. Futures maturing in December this year closed the week at the level of $2.855, while those maturing in December 2025 were last traded at $3.044.
