![]() |
Get all the essential market news and expert opinions in one place with our daily newsletter. Receive a comprehensive recap of the day’s top stories directly to your inbox. Sign up here! |
(Kitco News) – Asset prices trended higher to end the work week as traders elected to throw caution to the wind and dove back into the markets despite continuing signs that interest rates will likely rise in the near future as the Federal Reserve attempts to tame inflation.
Friday saw the release of the September jobs report, which showed the U.S. economy added 336,000 jobs last month – nearly double the 170,000 expected by economists – shining a spotlight on concerns that the labor market is working against the Fed’s effort to battle inflation. Revisions to the August and July jobs data also added 119,000 more jobs to what was previously reported, providing further evidence that the U.S. job market is strong.
The September unemployment rate came in at 3.8%, unchanged from August, and at a level not seen since February 2022.
At the closing bell, the S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq all finished in the green, up 1.18%, 0.87%, and 1.60%, respectively.
Data provided by TradingView shows that Bitcoin (BTC) experienced a midday whipsaw for the second day in a row, albeit with a positive outcome this time, as it briefly dipped to a daily low of $27,175 before bulls managed to rally to a high of $28,075. At the time of writing, BTC is trading near support at $28,000.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
In the futures market, “October Bitcoin futures prices [were] firmer in early U.S. trading Friday,” according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff.
Bitcoin futures 1-day chart. Source: Kitco
“The bulls have the near-term technical advantage and are keeping alive a price uptrend in place on the daily chart,” Wyckoff said. “The path of least resistance for prices remains sideways to higher in the near term.”
Rachel Lin, CEO and co-founder of SynFutures, said the week “was a mixed bag for the crypto market, with Bitcoin performing well and the broader market struggling to keep its gains.”
“The number one cryptocurrency had a great week as it increased by over 3% compared to last week,” Lin said. “More importantly, BTC also converted $27,000 from resistance to support as it bounced up from this level twice in the past two days. It’s important to note that Bitcoin did the same to the $26,000 level a few weeks ago.”
Lin highlighted $28,000 as the next major resistance level for bulls, saying, “Both the 200-daily moving average and the 200-weekly moving average are at this level,” with Bitcoin seeing strong selling every time it enters that zone. “A sustained break above $28,100 would be a positive sign and could lead Bitcoin to $30,000,” she said.
As for the altcoins, Lin said the “lackluster performance” of the recently launched Ethereum futures ETFs has “pushed down the spot price of ETH,” and since most altcoins track the performance of Ether, “they went down as well.”
Touching on the equities market, Lin said they “are slowly coming to terms with the fact that the much anticipated Fed Rate Pivot will not happen anytime soon.”
“Overall, we had another week where the crypto market outperformed equities,” she said. “We also continued to witness increased adoption of crypto in the real world. Despite the current volatility, these are good signs for the market in the medium to long term.”
MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe also saw the solid finish for the week as a signal that BTC could soon climb above $30,000.
#Bitcoin making a perfect higher low and attacking the highs again.
The bullish thesis stands, this quarter the likelihood of breaking $30K and altcoins starting to get into momentum is substantial.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) October 6, 2023
Altcoins climb higher
Roughly two dozen tokens in the top 200 traded in the red on Friday, while the rest recorded gains, with all but two of the losers seeing declines of less than 2%.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Tellor (TRB) led the gainers with an increase of 27.2%, followed by a 12.25% increase for Threshold (T), and a 9.55% gain for Worldcoin (WLD). THORChain was the biggest loser with a decline of 11.9%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.09 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 49.8%.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.