ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Bitcoin Sentiment Riding High The Google Trend Momentum Check (GTMC) is staring down another test with Bitcoin (BTC/USD). A run-up in Google search interest in Bitcoin accompanied the run-up of Bitcoin to all-time highs. Google search interest is a proxy for sentiment. Accordingly, Bitcoin sentiment is running at extremes relative to recent levels. Per the … Read more
Bitcoin Price Failure In late May, a “price failure” in Bitcoin (BTC/USD) sent me to the sidelines. I decided to retreat to wait for a breakout and accumulate a new position on the way up. Two months later the moment arrived. The U.S. dollar (DXY) broke down and Bitcoin broke out. As a result, I … Read more
I often use Google searches to understand the context for trading in Bitcoin (BTC/USD). I formalized this strategy into the Google Trends Momentum Check (GTMC). Consistently, Nigeria tops the list of countries with Bitcoin searches. A recent article in Bitcoin.com titled “Nigeria’s Foreign Currency Crisis Boon for Bitcoin: Country Tops Wallet Downloads Ahead of the … Read more
Two weeks ago, I examined the sharp pullback in Bitcoin (BTC/USD) and concluded that the cryptocurrency was taking a refreshing pause ahead of the next breakout. The breakout is here. This breakout is a double bonus as it represents a bullish (upside) resolution to a Bollinger Band (BB) squeeze. Such breakouts are tradeable with well-defined … Read more
Trees do not grow to the sky – even cryptocurrency trees with Bitcoin leaves. The old adage describes a core rule of the physics of price momentum. Whether buying or selling, traders and investors eventually exhaust themselves – whether existing resources are too low to maintain buying pressure or motivated sellers finally run out of … Read more
The U.S. Dollar Index Breaks Down The U.S. dollar broke down last week. The weekly chart below shows the U.S. dollar index (DXY) closed last week at a near 2-year low. Numerous anti-dollar bets are gaining fast thanks to the U.S. dollar’s breakdown. The cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC/USD) is joining the party. Bitcoin joins the anti-dollar … Read more
Price Failures The furious rally in Bitcoin (BTC/USD) from the March lows helped take my mind off the on-going downtrend in price. Since the last major peak in price at $13,880 on June 26, 2019, BTC/USD has made a series of lower highs and lower lows. The last peak in price was on May 7th … Read more
The Bitcoin Price Breakout Bitcoin (BTC/USD) wiped away my wariness about the price action with one clean breakout that finished a reversal of March’s steep losses. For about five days, Bitcoin was teasing its way toward a challenge of overhead resistance at its downtrending 200-day moving average (DMA). During the previous day, Bitcoin gained about … Read more
Bitcoin (BTC/USD) has had an interesting – and surprising – relationship with the recent crash in financial markets. Bitcoin fell 39.1% on March 12th just as the crash was accelerating. The S&P 500 (SPY) continued to sell off for another week and a half after Bitcoin crashed. By the time the S&P 500 bottomed Bitcoin … Read more
My first warning on Bitcoin (BTCUSD) came when Bitcoin failed to push through overhead resistance from October’s brief and failed run-up (see the horizontal line above) despite the bullish case being made at the time about the breakout. The most convincing warning came when the cryptocurrency sold off with the stock market in late February. … Read more