TL;DR
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After BTC broke $50k on Mon, it retraced back down to $48,550 after a higher than expected CPI print (3.1% vs. 2.9%), sparking fears of further rate hikes.
Full Story
“I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that meddling inflation data.”
— Bitcoin’s price (if it somehow became sentient and started making comments to crypto news publications in the style of a Scooby Doo villain).
Confused? You should be. Here’s what’s going on…
After Bitcoin’s run up to $50k on Monday, it quickly retraced back down to $48,550 (the golden fib level) yesterday morning, and it was all thanks to some extra spicy Consumer Price Index (CPI) data — aka “the average cost of everyday items” data.
Can you guess when the CPI data was released? 👇
Want more details?
“Details? Those are where the devil lives, no thanks.”
— you, probably.
Well, you’re getting them anyway:
The CPI was expected to increase 2.9% year-on-year, but instead came in higher, at 3.1% — which doesn’t sound like much, but +0.2% is enough to make the wrong people nervous (i.e. Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell).
The market now fears the following playing out:
J-Powell freaks out about inflation increasing → instead of lowering interest rates as previously planned (making everyone’s loan/credit repayments cheaper, and leaving us all with more disposable income), JP increases them.
The idea being that an increase would leave society as a whole with less money to spend, which should lower prices and fight inflation, so:
On the retail side of things — businesses would have to lower their prices to entice shoppers.
As for financial markets — lowered prices will lead to lowered earnings, will lead to lowered investment, will lead to lowered crypto/stock/housing prices.
Alright, now you know!
