MARKETS week ahead: May 27 – June 2

5月27日

Last week in the news

The most important weekly news comes from the crypto market, as the SEC approved ETH exchange traded funds. The price of both ETH and BTC experienced high volatility during the week, with BTC ending the week above the 69K. The pricing of the first Fed rate cut modestly impacted the 10Y Treasury yields, however the price of gold reacted with a stronger price reversal, closing the week at $2.333. There has also been some volatility in the S & P 500 index, which is ending the week flat, supported by tech companies.

The US Secretary and Exchange Commission confirmed that it has approved exchange-traded funds which are holding Ethereum`s native token, ETH. This came as a surprise for markets, as there has been a lot of discussions regarding SEC`s potential decision on spot ETH ETF`s. Now the majority of analysts are questioning whether such a decision was influenced by politics or by several court rules, where SEC lost the case regarding its opinion on coins as securities. Whatever is the real reason, certainly ETH and the crypto market benefited from such a decision.

Analysts from UBS have been actively researching and forecasting the price of gold lately. In their latest report, the largest Swiss bank reassessed its forecast for the price of this metal, raising it from $2.500 to $2.600 per ounce. Their reassessment came after the latest market pricing of Fed`s cuts in interest rates during the course of this year. Namely, they took into consideration that the market is currently pricing 40 bps cut in 2024, which was increased from 28 bps previously.

As announced by the Russell 1000 Index, there is expectation for reassessment of the companies included in this index, where 38 new names will be included. Among names which are mentioned are Super Micro Computer, MicroStrategy and Carvana. Among all companies, the tech ones are dominant, including MicroStrategy which is investing specifically into BTC.
Analysts from Goldman Sachs` prime brokerage noted in their report that hedge funds are selling US equities at rates which were prevalent in January this year. This represents a significant shift in the sentiment, considering that for the last five weeks net buying was dominant. As noted, this shift in sentiment is coming after indication that the Fed's rate might stay elevated for an extended period of time.

Crypto market cap

There has been another significant milestone reached for the crypto market during the previous week. Although the market was doubting the decision, still the US SEC finally approved exchange traded funds which hold Etherem`s native token, ETH. There should not be specifically noted how the market reacted to this news. As it came as a sort of surprise, the price of ETH went up shortly by more than 20%, and is still holding. Futures also reacted to this news, pushing the price of ETH to the level of more than 4K for the period till the end of the next year. Total market capitalization significantly gained during the week, with an inflow of 137B in funds, which increased its total market cap by 6% on a weekly basis. Daily trading volumes were increased to 126B on a daily basis, from 110B traded during the previous week. Total crypto market capitalization increase from the end of the previous year, currently stands at 861B, which represents a 53% surge from the beginning of this year.

It should not be specifically mentioned that previous week was ETH`s week. The coin gained significant 20% during the week, on news of the approval of ETH ETF`s. Total funds inflow into this coin was more than 75B. Although BTC had a volatile week, still, the coin managed to gain around 3.4% on a weekly basis, adding 44B to its market cap. There are few other coins with relatively good weekly performance. Binance coin added 3.5B to its cap, increasing it by 4.1%. DOGE was also traded on a positive side, with a gain of 2.6B or 11.7% w/w. This week Uniswap should be especially mentioned, as this coin managed to gain even 38% in value from the previous week. ZCash had also a good week with a surge in value of 14%. Algorand was up by more than 5%, OMG Network surged by 7.5%, while LINK was traded higher by 6.3%. Only a few coins ended the week with the losing track, like Tron, which lost 8% in value, while Cardano was down by 5%.

There have been relatively minor changes with circulating coins. Tether continues to increase the number of its coins on the market, adding new 0.5% during the previous week. XRP also increased its coins by 0.3%. Traditionally, Filecoin is posting strong increases in coins week by week, adding 0.6% during the previous week. Maker added 0.2% of new coins. Majority of other coins added around 0.1% of new coins on the market.




Crypto futures market

Crypto futures market reacted positively to the news regarding the approval of the ETH exchange traded funds. The price of this coin was increased by 20% on a weekly basis and the futures market was following developments. Short term futures gained above 20%, while the longer term ones gained more than 28% within the week. ETH futures maturing in December this year reached the price of $3.962, and those maturing a year later were last traded at $4.146.

BTC futures also followed positive market sentiment. Futures gained above 2.7% on a weekly basis for all maturities. In this sense, futures maturing in December 2024 closed the week at price $70.795, and those maturing a year later were last traded at $75.605.