Last week in the news
The US inflation data were in the spotlight of the markets during the previous week. A modest increase in September was another indicator for markets that the Fed might continue to cut in the coming period. The US equity markets reacted positively, bringing the S&P 500 to the freshly new all time highest level. The index is ending the week at the level of 5.815. The US Dollar gained during the week, while the price of gold managed to break from the $2,6K level, reaching new highs at $2.657. The 10 US Treasury yields spent the week testing the levels modestly above the 4,0%, easing a bit at the weekend. The crypto market was traded in a mixed manner, still, BTC managed to reach the 63K short term resistance as of the Fridays trading session.
The US inflation data for September was published during the previous week. The data shows that the inflation is cooling down toward the Feds targeted 2%. The inflation was higher by 0,2% for the month, bringing the total yearly inflation to the level of 2,4%. Core inflation continues to be elevated, adding 0,3% in September to the total yearly score of 3,3%. The majority of market participants are positive when it comes to expectations that the Fed might continue to cut interest rates at their November meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. Still, Atlanta Fed President Bostic, noted in an interview that he might be against a rate cut in November in order to get better insight if inflation is certainly moving toward the 2% target.
The ECB meeting is scheduled for October 17th, where its members will discuss the potential rate cut. As per current market sentiment, expressed in the Reuters poll, 90% of economists and professionals are of the opinion that the ECB will make a 25 bps cut in October and also 25 bps cut in December. Such a sentiment is supported by a cooling inflation in the EuroZone, which is gradually moving toward the 2,0% target. However, the core inflation is expected to stay elevated. On the other hand, it should be considered that the EuroZone is struggling to sustain economic growth. It is expected that the economy will grow modest 0.2% this quarter, reaching some 0.7% a yearly growth. Still, the economy is expected to accelerate during 2025 by 1,2%.
After frenzy for China’s stocks hit the market two weeks ago, the market has cooled down during the previous week, as China’s Ministers did not provide in a statement the level of austerity measures as was expected by markets. News reports that China’s finance minister noted in an address to journalists, that China has space to increase its debt and the deficit. The government is still not publicly disclosing the level of fiscal stimulus for the economy.
Tesla shares dropped by around 9% during the week, after the announcement of a new product called robo-taxi. The investors were not at all impressed by the product, as they were commenting that the presentation was related to Elon Musk’s vision of the future more than opportunities for Tesla.
Crypto market cap
The crypto market was traded in a mixed manner during the previous week. The start of the week was with a negative sentiment, but the US inflation which is nearing toward the Feds target of 2% turned market sentiment to positive one. Although the highest weekly gainers were US equity markets, still positive sentiment helped the crypto market to end a week with a small weekly gain. Total crypto market capitalization increased by modest 2%, adding $ 51B to the market cap. Almost half of it came solely from Bitcoin. Daily trading volumes were modestly decreased to the level of around 114B on a daily basis, from 126B traded a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase from the end of the previous year currently stands at 514B which represents a 31% surge from the beginning of this year.
The first half of the week was not positive for the majority of crypto coins, however, the majority of them managed to finish the week with a small gain. The leader of the market was BTC, which added 24B to its market cap, finishing the week at a gain of almost 2%. ETH surged by 3% on a weekly basis, adding 8.7B to its capitalization. BNB also managed to add 2.2B to its market cap, increasing it by 2.7%. The group of significant weekly gainers also includes Solana, with an increase in cap of 2.3B or 3.4%. Coins which managed to increase their market capitalization in relative terms were NEO, with a surge of 7.25%, ZCash was traded higher by even 28.1%, currently without public information on the reason. Uniswap also ended the week with a gain of 20.3% on a weekly basis, which was rare, but quite a significant increase of the market value. The majority of other coins gained somewhere from 0% up to 3%. There were also several losers during the week, like LINK, which traded down by 1.85%, OMG Network ended the week by 5% lower, Maker dropped by 6.3%.
Changes in circulating coins are still relatively active on the crypto market. During the previous week Polygon decreased the number of its coins on the market by 0.8%, while Maker`s circulating coins decreased by 0.3%. On the opposite side, Algorand increased the number of coins on the market by 0.4%, while Solana, Polkadot and Filecoin increased the number of coins by 0.2%. The majority of other altcoins increased their circulating coins by 0.1% w/w.
Crypto futures market
The crypto futures market did not manage to catch up with an increase in value of coins which occurred on the spot market. BTC both short and long term futures were traded higher by around 0.9% on a weekly basis. BTC futures maturing in December this year reached the last price at $64.210, while those maturing a year later are still holding above the 70K level, ending the week at $70.305.
ETH futures were traded higher by around 1% on a weekly basis, except those maturing in December 2024, which were last traded at $2.505 or 4.03% higher from the week before. Futures maturing in December 2025 closed the week at level of $2.696, while March 2026 was traded below the 3K level, ending the week at $2.745.