The big news for the day (or so it seemed) came at the very end of the day with the announcement that ETFs for Bitcoin were approved. But wait.. it was then announced by the SEC that the ETFs were not approved.
The initial news sent the price of BTC up to high of $47897 before retracing the gains and moving lower to $44903 on the denial headline. The SEC said that the SEC Gov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. Hmmm.
The market was expecting a Wednesday announcement which made the announcement today a surprise. My wonder is “Is the denial the hack?” Did they really approve it? Time will tell what the truth is, but it seems appropriate for some sort of Yay or Nay is certainly in order.
The current price is trading back at $46110 in what is volatile trading.
For the trading day in the forex, the USD is the strongest of the major currencies as the day winds to a close. The CHF is the weakest.
The strongest to the weakest of the major currencies
Most of the currency pairs, like the EUR, JPY, NZD, GBP and CAD are ending the day mixed/little changed in what was up and down trading.
The biggest mover in the forex was the USDCHF with a gain of 0.54% on the day. Technically, the pair was able to extend back above the 100-hour MA at 0.8499 (blue line on the chart below) and stay above that MA in the early US session. The price has also been able to extend above its 38.2% of the move down from the December high at 0.85185, giving the buyer more hope as the market prepares for the new trading day. Risk will be defined vs. those levels going into the new trading day, and it will take a move below each to tilt the bias more in favor of the sellers. For other technical views on the major currency pairs CLICK HERE.
USDCHF is the biggest mover in trading today
In other markets as the day comes to a close:
- Crude oil is trading up $1.48 or 2.09% at $72.26. The saw toothed price action has the commodity trading between $74 on topside to $70.47 on the downside. The private survey of inventory released late in the day, showed that crude oil inventories showed a larger than expected drawdown of -5.215 million barrels. However, that was offset by gasoline stocks which showed a large build of 4.896 million barrels, and distilates which showed a build of 6.873 million barrels.
- Spot gold is trading up $1.16 or 0.11% at $2030.27
- Spot silver is trading down -$0.11 or -0.49% at $22.96
In the US stock market today, the major indices closed mixed:
- Dow Industrial Average fell -157.85 points or -0.42% at 37525.17
- S&P index fell -7.04 points or -0.15% at 4756.51
- Nasdaq index rose 13.93 points or 0.09% at 14857.70. It was the pairs 2nd gain in a row.
In the US debt market, yields are trading higher:
- 2-year yield 4.366% +2.1 basis points
- 5-year yield 3.973% +1.7 basis points
- 10 year yield 4.015% +1.3 basis points
- 30-year yield 4.190% +1.7 basis points
The key US release this week remains the US CPI data which will be announced on Thursday at 8:30 AM. The expectations are for 0.2% for both the headline in the core.
On Friday, the current earnings calendar for the fourth quarter is kickstarted with the traditional financial institutions. J.P. Morgan, Citicorp, Bank of New York Mellon, Wells Fargo, will all release along with Delta Air Lines and UnitedHealth. It will not be until January 23 before some of the other big names start to announce starting with Netflix. Tesla will report on January 23 along with IBM. On January 25 Intel will announce.
It looks like Microsoft will announce on January 31 and Apple, Alphabet and Meta will all announce on March 1.
Thank you for your support. Good fortune with your trading.