In today's release, we’ll cover the following topics:
The second wave of growth in the cryptocurrency market, which began at the end of 2020, is already a multiple of the first, which ended in December 2017. It was largely due to a sharp increase in liquidity and, as a result, a decrease in the level of profitability of traditional financial instruments. At the same time, I will pay attention to the rapid growth of bitcoin – on the first trading day of the week, it was about 20% and became the strongest intraday growth in the entire history of this asset.
Already on Tuesday, the price of bitcoin exceeded 48 thousand dollars, thereby updating the historical highs. One of the reasons for the explosive growth was a report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission by Tesla, according to which it invested $1.5 billion in BTC in January. At the same time, Tesla announced that it will soon start accepting payments in bitcoin, allowing customers to pay with cryptocurrency for the purchase of goods in its store.
Returning to traditional financial instruments, I will pay attention to the general weakening of the US dollar. Let me remind you that in the first half of the previous trading week, demand for the US currency increased amid expectations of faster growth in the US economy and a significant improvement in the labor market, but the report published on Friday did not meet the expectations of investors.
As a result, we are seeing a general sell-off of the US dollar against most currencies. So, for example, the GBP/USD currency pair has updated its highs since April 2018, while buyers of the EUR/USD currency pair managed to compensate for more than 150 points. At the same time, we should not forget about the rather difficult economic situation in Europe, which has a negative impact on European currencies and, as a result, will keep the quotes of the marked currency pairs from growing rapidly.
Now let's move on to the oil market. The current week began with another renewal of annual highs, the American WTI crude oil rose above $58.5, while Brent was trading above $61. All this is due to a significant increase in oil demand in China and the simultaneous restrictions of OPEC and their allies on the extraction of black gold. However, it is important to consider the increasing risk of a corrective decline in this market.
Closely monitor the news background and be prepared for all the surprises of the market.