A new Deutsche Bank survey found that over half of respondents expect cryptocurrencies to become an important asset class and a method of payment. In addition, 10% of respondents expect the price of bitcoin to be above $75,000 by year-end. Deutsche Bank’s Crypto Survey A recent Deutsche Bank survey of over 3,600 consumers, published this […]
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Cardano (ADA) risks a significant price decline as several on-chain metrics paint a bearish sentiment for the crypto token. This coincides with a recent technical analysis by a crypto analyst, who predicted that ADA could drop to as low as $0.4.
Data from the on-chain analytics platform Messari shows a decline in ADA’s trading volume from its recent peak. The crypto token recorded a daily trading volume of $1.53 billion on March 14 but has been on a steady decline since then, recording a daily trading volume of $445.83 million on April 10.
Furthermore, data from IntoTheBlock shows three other on-chain metrics signaling a bearish sentiment for the crypto token. The first is the ‘Net Network Growth,’ which has experienced a 0.17% increase in the past week. This metric measures the total number of ADA addresses, meaning more users have left the ecosystem than new ones have come this last week.
The second metric is the ‘In the Money,’ which has seen a 0.20% decline in the last seven days. This metric measures the number of ADA holders that are currently in profit at the crypto token’s price level. Meanwhile, large transactions on the Cardano network have also dropped lately, with a 2.60 decline. These large transactions refer to transactions that are over $100,000, suggesting that ADA whales are cooling off on investing in the crypto token.
These bearish on-chain metrics further strengthen crypto analyst Alan Santana’s analysis, in which he mentioned that ADA could drop between $0.4444 and $0.3450. Back then, he noted that ADA still had a bearish outlook from a technical analysis perspective, and this outlook would extend until ADA found a strong support level on the charts.
Data from Coinglass shows that the bears are also firmly in control of the ADA ecosystem. In the last 24 hours, $632,720 has been wiped out from ADA’s derivatives market, with long positions ($502,170) accounting for most of these liquidations.
Meanwhile, trading volume in ADA’s derivatives market has dropped by over 11%, suggesting a declining interest in the ADA token among crypto investors. Furthermore, the Options trading volume paints a more bearish picture, dropping by 92% in the last 24 hours.
At the time of writing, ADA is trading at around $0.59, up over 1% in the last 24 hours according to data from CoinMarketCap.
ADA price at $0.58 | Source: ADAUSDT on Tradingview.com
Featured image from The Independent, chart from Tradingview.com
Disclaimer: The article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.
The outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF rocked the market hard last week, leading to a dramatic decline in the BTC price. However, with the new week, there has been a change in direction as investors begin to get bullish on Bitcoin once more. As a result, the outflows from the Grayscale ETF have slowed down, reaching one of its lowest points for the month.
Grayscale outflows ramped up last week, spearheading what would turn out to be a full week of outflows from Spot Bitcoin ETFs for the first time ever. The outflows rose rapidly over the week, even moving into the new week. However, inflows into Spot Bitcoin ETFs have been on the rise, which have overshadowed the outflows from GBTC.
Despite the outflows from the GBTC continuing, it has begun to spin into a more positive narrative as the number of BTC flowing out of the fund is declining fast. To put this in perspective, data shows there was 299.8 BTC moved out of the fund on Wednesday, March 27, and on Thursday, March, 20204, this figure dropped to 104.9 BTC, representing a 60% drop.
This marks the second day with the lowest outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF right behind the March 12 outflows of 79 BTC. It also points to a decline in the volume of outflows as investors start to level out and find their footing elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the GBTC has remained the loser of the Spot Bitcoin ETF race, nursing a full month of outflows so far. Since the ETFs were first approved in January until now, there has been more than $14.6 billion moved out of the fund, which accounts for around 50% of its total balance. These BTC have presumably found a home in other Spot ETF funds which have been seeing massive inflows.
Unlike last week, inflows have also dominated Spot Bitcoin ETFs this week. Total inflows for the week crossed above $800 million, bringing the total Assets Under Management (AuM) to almost $57 billion in less than three months.
The last time that GBTC outflows saw a slowdown after rising for about a week, it triggered a response from the Bitcoin price in the form of a rally. Inflows also continued to dominate for the next couple of weeks and during this time, the BTC price enjoyed a long stretch of recovery. It went from $40,000 to over $70,000 in the space of two months.
If this trend repeats itself this time around, then another massive BTC price rally could be around the corner. A similar price increase would also put Bitcoin right above $100,000 in the next few months. In this case, the uptrend would be far from over.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is still struggling to break $70,000 after a 1% drop in the last day.
BTC price jumps above $70,000 | Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview.com
Featured image from Which.co.uk, chart from Tradingview.com
Disclaimer: The article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attends a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 13, 2023.
Liu Jie | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
Immediately after the Federal Reserve wraps up its meeting this week, all eyes are likely to gravitate to one small piece of wording that could unlock the future of monetary policy.
In its post-meeting statement, the central bank is expected give an important hint about interest rate moves to come by removing a clause from previous statements that reads: “In determining the extent of any additional policy firming that may be appropriate to return inflation to 2 percent over time,” followed by an outlining of conditions it assesses.
For the past year-plus, the wording has underlined the Fed’s willingness to keep raising interest rates until it reaches its inflation goal. Remove that clause and it opens the door to potential rate cuts ahead; keep it and policymakers will be sending a signal that they’re not sure what’s to come.
The difference will mean a lot to financial markets.
Amending the wording could amount to a “meaningful overhaul” of the Federal Open Market Committee’s post-meeting statement, and its direction, according to Deutsche Bank economists.
“We heard at the December meeting that no official expected to raise rates further as a baseline outcome. And we’ve heard that Fed officials are beginning the discussions around rate cuts,” Matthew Luzzetti, Deutsche Bank’s chief U.S. economist, said in an interview. “So getting rid of that explicit tightening bias is kind of a precondition to more actively thinking about when they might cut rates, and to leaving the door open for a March rate cut.”
While the market has accepted for months that the Fed is likely done raising rates, the most burning question is when it will start cutting. The Fed last hiked in July 2023. Since then, inflation numbers have drifted lower and are, by one measure, less than a percentage point away from the central bank’s 2% 12-month target.
Just a few weeks ago, futures markets were convinced the Fed would start in March, assigning a nearly 90% probability to such a move, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge. Now, there’s considerably more uncertainty as multiple statements from Fed officials point to a more cautious approach about declaring victory over inflation.
Chairman Jerome Powell will have a thin line to walk during his post-meeting news conference.
“They’re going to get a lot of data between the January and March meetings, particularly as it relates to inflation,” Luzzetti said. “How those data come in will be critical to determining the outcomes of future meetings. He’ll leave it open, but will not try to open it any more than what the market already has.”
For this meeting, it will be harder to decipher where the full FOMC is heading as it will not include the quarterly “dot plot” of individual members’ projections.
However, most of the public statements that officials have delivered in recent days point away from a hurry to cut. At the same time, policymakers have expressed concern about over-tightening.
The fed funds rate, currently targeted in a range between 5.25% and 5.5%, is restrictive by historical standards and looks even more so as inflation drops and the “real” rate rises. The inflation rate judged by core personal consumption expenditures prices, a U.S. Department of Commerce measure that the Fed favors, indicates the real funds rate to be around 2.4%. Fed officials figure the long-run real rate to be closer to 0.5%.
“The main thing that they will probably want to do is gain a lot of optionality,” said Bill English, the former head of monetary affairs at the Fed and now a finance professor at the Yale School of Management. “That would mean saying something rather vague at this point [such as] we’re determining the stance of policy that may be appropriate or something like that.”
Post-meeting statements going back to at least late 2022 have used the “in determining the extent of any additional policy firming” phrasing or similar verbiage to indicate the FOMC’s resolve in tightening monetary policy to bring down inflation.
With six- and three-month measures showing inflation actually running at or below the 2% target, such hawkishness could seem unnecessary now.
“In effect, that’s saying that they’re more likely to be raising than cutting,” English said of the clause. “I guess they don’t think that’s really true. So I would think they’d want to be ready to cut rates in March if it seems appropriate when they get there.”
Officials will be weighing the balance of inflation that is declining against economic growth that has held stronger than anticipated. Gross domestic product grew at an annualized pace of 3.3% in the fourth quarter, lower than the previous period but well ahead of where Fed officials figured it would be at this stage.
Traders in the fed funds futures market are pricing in about a 60% chance of a cut happening in March, the first of five or six moves by the end of 2024, assuming quarter-percentage-point increments, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge. FOMC members in their latest projections in December pointed to just three reductions this year.
The Fed hasn’t cut as aggressively as traders expected absent a recession since the 1980s and that “led to excess investor confidence culminating in the 1987 stock market crash,” Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, said in his daily market note Monday evening.
Yet, Goldman Sachs economists said they figure the Fed will “remove the now outdated hiking bias” from the post-meeting statement and set the stage for a cut in March and five total on the year. In a client note, the firm said it also figures the committee could borrow a line from the December meeting minutes indicating it would “be appropriate for policy to remain at a restrictive stance until inflation is clearly moving down sustainably toward the Committee’s objective.”
However, a restrictive stance isn’t the same as holding rates where they are now, and that kind of linguistic move would give the committee wiggle room to cut.
Markets also will be looking for information on when the Fed begins to reverse its balance sheet runoff, a process that has seen the central bank reduce its bond holdings by about $1.2 trillion since mid-2022.
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Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., January 19, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Markets have become less convinced that the Federal Reserve is ready to press the button on interest rate cuts, an issue that cuts at the heart of where the economy and stocks are headed.
Two big economic reports coming up this week could go a long way toward determining at least which way the central bank policymakers could lean — and how markets might react to a turn in monetary policy.
Investors will get their first look at the broad picture of fourth-quarter economic growth for 2023 when the Commerce Department releases its initial gross domestic product estimate on Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones are expecting the total of all goods and services produced in the U.S. economy to have grown at a 1.7% pace for the final three months of 2023, which would be the slowest since the 0.6% decline in Q2 of 2022.
A day later, the Commerce Department will release the December reading on the personal consumption expenditures price index, a favorite Fed inflation gauge. The consensus expectation for core PCE prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy components, is 0.2% growth for the month and 3% for the full year.
Both data points should garner a lot of attention, particularly the inflation numbers, which have been trending toward the Fed’s 2% goal but aren’t there yet.
“That’s the thing that everybody should be watching to determine what the Fed’s rate path will end up being,” Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said during an interview Friday on CNBC. “It’s not about secret meetings or decisions. It’s fundamentally about the data and what will enable us to become less restrictive if we have clear evidence that we’re on the path to get” inflation back to target.
The releases come amid a market snapback about where the Fed is heading.
As of Friday afternoon, trading in the fed funds futures market equated to virtually no chance the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee will cut at its Jan. 30-31 meeting, according to CME Group data as indicated through its FedWatch Tool. That’s nothing new, but the odds for a reduction at the March meeting fell to 47.2%, a steep slide from 81% just a week ago.
Along with that, traders have taken one expected cut off the table, reducing the outlook for easing to five quarter percentage point decreases from six previously.
The change in sentiment followed data showing stronger-than-expected 0.6% growth in consumer spending for December and initial jobless claims falling to their lowest weekly level since September 2022. On top of that, several of Goolsbee’s colleagues, including Governor Christopher Waller, New York Fed President John Williams and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, issued commentary indicating that at the very least they are in no hurry to cut even if the hikes are probably done. Goolsbee is not a voter on the FOMC this year.
“I don’t like tying my hands, and we still have weeks of data,” Goolsbee said. “Let’s take the long view. If we continue to make surprising progress faster than was forecast on inflation, then we have to take that into account in determining the level of restrictiveness.”
Goolsbee noted that one particular area of focus for him will be housing inflation.
The December consumer price index report indicated that shelter inflation, which accounts for about one-third of the weighting in the CPI, rose 6.2% from a year ago, well ahead of a pace consistent with 2% inflation.
However, other measures tell a different story.
A new Labor Department reading known as the New Tenant Rent Index, indicates a lower path ahead for housing inflation. The index, which measures prices for new leases that tenants sign, showed a 4.6% decline in the fourth quarter of 2023 from a year ago and more than double that quarterly.
“In the very near term, we think the inflation data will cooperate with the Fed’s dovish plans,” Citigroup economist Andrew Hollenhorst said in a client note.
However, Citi foresees inflation as stubborn and likely to delay the first cut until at least June.
While it’s unclear how much difference the timing makes, or how important it is if the Fed only cuts four or five times compared with the more ambitious market expectations, market outcomes have seem linked to the expectations for monetary policy.
There are plenty of factors that change the outlook in both directions — a continued rally in the stock market might worry the Fed about more inflation in the pipeline, as could an acceleration in geopolitical tensions and stronger-than-expected economic growth.
“By keeping the potential alive for inflation to turn up, these economic and geopolitical developments could put upward pressure on both short-term rates and long-term yields,” Komal Sri-Kumar, president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, said Saturday in his weekly market note.
“Could the Federal Reserve be forced to raise the Federal Funds rate as its next move rather than cut it?” he added. “An intriguing thought. Don’t be surprised if there is more discussion along these lines in coming months.”
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Ethereum Name Service’s native token ENS surged over 40% on Jan. 3 after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin spoke positively about the platform and said it was “super important” for the ETH ecosystem.
As of press time, ENS was trading at approximately $13.94, up 40.38% over the last 24 hours. The token has a market cap of around $423.20 million.
The token’s trading volume over the same period stood at roughly $364.28 million, indicating a high level of market activity.
Addresses linked to Ethereum names collectively control around $277 million in various cryptocurrencies, including ether, wrapped ether, USDC, and Uniswap tokens. The large sum is indicative of substantial financial activity within the ENS ecosystem.
Buterin’s endorsement of ENS, describing it as “super important,” has played a pivotal role in the upward trend.
He believes that Layer-2 blockchains must integrate ENS domains to enhance the user experience in decentralized finance (DeFi) as they need a trustless, Merkle-proof-based CCIP resolver. Such integration would allow ENS subdomains to be registerable, updatable, and readable directly on Layer-2 platforms.
Buterin also recently proposed a new tax on ENS domain names, aiming to ensure broader brand adoption and decentralized ownership of ENS addresses. The proposed tax involves a 3% annual fee based on the highest bid for a domain name.
This fee model is intended to discourage the hoarding of domain names for profit and encourage their use by entities who will actively use them, thus promoting wider adoption and potentially benefiting ENS token holders as the funds from these fees would support the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) associated with ENS.
Buterin also previously suggested alternatives to Harberger taxing ENS domains in 2022.
Instead of Harberger’s model, where asset owners set their asset’s value and pay a percentage of it in yearly taxes, Buterin proposed a demand-based recurring pricing model.
This model would see annual domain fees rise in proportion to a domain’s valuation, which in turn would increase based on open bids made by other users. The goal of this approach is to create a fairer and more dynamic pricing mechanism that reflects the actual demand and value of ENS domain names.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the talk of the market, and a handful of stocks, like Nvidia (NVDA 1.95%) and Microsoft (MSFT 0.88%), have jumped on the year’s AI developments. But there’s one company that’s more critical to AI than you might think.
In this video, Travis Hoium covers Taiwan Semiconductor‘s (TSM 1.07%) role in the industry and shows why it’s one of the safer ways to play AI development today.
*Stock prices used were end-of-day prices of Dec. 6, 2023. The video was published on Dec. 8, 2023.
Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Travis Hoium has positions in Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends 10x Genomics, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Travis Hoium is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through their link they will earn some extra money that supports their channel. Their opinions remain their own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Preparing for retirement usually means answering a lot of questions. How much will I need saved? What will my expenses look like? What kind of lifestyle am I hoping to enjoy?
There are plenty of factors that vary from person to person, but one of the most pressing for many people is when they’re going to claim Social Security benefits.
If you’re blessed to have a nice retirement nest egg, Social Security will be a nice-to-have supplemental retirement income source. For most Americans, though, this isn’t the case. Social Security plays a major role in many people’s finances during retirement, so the timing of one’s claim is a huge decision.
There are many numbers you’re expected to know regarding Social Security — from full retirement age to wage base limits and cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) — but one of the most important numbers is 82 1/2, because it can be a key part in helping you decide when to claim benefits.
Image source: Getty Images.
Your full retirement age (FRA) is significant because it tells you when you’re eligible to receive your full Social Security benefit. Using the benefit amount you’re entitled to at full retirement age, Social Security calculates any adjustments to your monthly check when you decide to claim before or after FRA.
You can claim benefits as early as 62, but your monthly payout will be reduced based on how many months away your full retirement age is. For example, someone whose full retirement age is 67 would have their monthly benefit reduced by 20% if they claim at 64 and 30% if they claim at 62.
On the other hand, you can delay benefits past your full retirement age, increasing them by two-thirds of 1% each month, or 8% annually.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The thought of increased monthly benefits is appealing but may not be worth it. As an example, let’s use someone whose full retirement age is 67 and who has a monthly benefit of $1,900 (the estimated monthly average for retired workers in Jan. 2024 is $1,907). If they delay benefits until 70, they can expect a 24% increase to their monthly payout, bringing it to $2,356.
Based on a potential claim at 67 or 70 with those numbers, here’s how much this person would collect in total by different ages:
| Monthly Benefit | Total by Age 80 | Total by Age 82 1/2 | Total by Age 85 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,900 | $296,400 | $353,400 | $410,400 |
| $2,356 | $282,720 | $353,400 | $424,080 |
Calculations by author.
Even with the increased benefit, someone claiming at age 70 would collect less in cumulative benefits by age 80 than if they claim at 67. By age 85, it flips, and claiming at 70 results in higher total income.
For someone debating between claiming benefits at 67 (most people’s full retirement age) or waiting until 70, the magic number is 82 1/2. That’s your break-even age: the earliest point when claiming at 70 is advantageous to claiming at 67.
Knowing this break-even age, it’s your job to assess your personal situation to help determine if delaying benefits is worth it.
For someone with a personal or family history of health concerns, claiming earlier may be the wise choice to maximize benefits. For someone with a higher life expectancy who can comfortably live off their retirement savings for a few years, delaying benefits to increase the monthly payout makes sense.
Everybody’s situation is unique, so carefully considering key factors, including your break-even age, is important. Make sure you weigh your current financial needs, retirement goals, and potential retirement income when doing your research.
Making an informed decision can not only put you in a better financial position, but it can also bring well-earned peace of mind during your retirement years.
While the U.S. trading week is shortened by the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s important to watch the stock market’s performance to see if the rally of the past month can be sustained through the year-end.
Stocks have rallied in November so far, with the S&P 500 index SPX logging a 8.6% gain month-to-date, while it’s up 18.6% so far this year, according to FactSet data.
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