Bitcoin is rising and rising
US investors take cover before price data
March 11, 2024, 10:48 p.m
At the start of the week, profit-taking is the order of the day on Wall Street. This particularly affects tech stocks like Nvidia – the AI heavyweight’s soaring seems to be over for now. Bitcoin, on the other hand, continues to go up.
Ahead of the eagerly awaited inflation data, investors on Wall Street ducked their heads at the start of the week. The Dow Jones Index the standard values closed a moderate 0.1 percent higher at 38,769 points. The technology-heavy one Nasdaq However, it fell 0.4 percent to 16,019 points. The broad one S&P 500 lost 0.1 percent to 5117 points.
After a mixed labor market report, the US stock markets had already come under pressure at the end of last week. Whether the US stock markets resume the upward trend will likely depend primarily on the upcoming inflation and economic data, which are crucial for the further course of the central banks. On Tuesday the focus will be on consumer prices in the US for February. Economists surveyed by Reuters expect the inflation rate to stabilize at the previous month’s level of 3.1 percent. The US Federal Reserve is aiming for a value of two percent. According to many experts, the interest rate turnaround will probably only be tackled in the middle of the year, if inflation pressure has subsided sustainably by then. The Dollar index was slightly firmer in the run-up to the data with 102.82 points. The euro fell 0.1 percent to $1.0926.
Investors cashed in again at the start of the week, especially in chip stocks, after they had already been at the top of the sales lists before the end of the week. Chip manufacturer Nvidia fell by two percent after the AI pioneer had already topped the list of losers among the major growth and technology stocks on Friday with a loss of 5.5 percent. After the recent stock market hype surrounding the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), other stocks in the chip sector also remained under pressure. The Nvidia rivals Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom fell by 4.3 and 1.2 percent.
Bitcoin reaches new all-time high
In contrast, investors turned to companies in the crypto industry after Bitcoin had reached a new record high. The cyber currency climbed 6.3 percent to a new all-time high of $72,739. The software company MicroStrategy jumped 4.1 percent. The company said it now holds 205,000 Bitcoin. The rally is likely to accelerate again if risk appetite continues to increase, said Timo Emden from Emden Research. “Investors could now set their sights on the $80,000 mark,” said the expert. The cyber currency is currently benefiting from the expectation of falling interest rates and higher demand for the approval of the first exchange-traded Bitcoin funds (ETFs) that invest directly in the cyber currency. Investors are also hoping for a further price boost from the upcoming “halving”, the artificial shortage of Bitcoin supplies.
Meanwhile, an investigation into the near-disaster at one Boeingflight in January made investors nervous. The US aircraft manufacturer’s shares fell by more than three percent. Alaska Airlines, which operated the flight, said Saturday it was cooperating with the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the criminal investigation into the incident. On January 5th, a part of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 with 177 people on board, which was just a few weeks old, broke off at an altitude of around 16,000 feet. Meanwhile, in another incident on Monday, at least 50 people were injured when a Latam Airlines Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner suddenly sank on a flight between Sydney and the New Zealand city of Auckland.