Russell Shor

The market is eagerly waiting for an announcement by the SEC on whether spot Bitcoin ETFs will be approved. This led to an incident yesterday where the SEC’s X account was accessed, and a fake comment was posted claiming that approval had been given. This fuelled a brief surge in Bitcoin’s price, where it climbed to almost $48,000 per coin. However, the cryptocurrency dropped to $45,000 after it emerged that…

The SPX500 is in bullish mode. It is above its black 30-week EMA, with the EMA pointing up. Its momentum-based RSI is above 50 (green rectangle), denoting a positive underlying momentum. However, there is a resistance area around 4,800 (red rectangle).

Apple (AAPL.us) shares have stalled into 2024 since being downgraded by Barclay's analyst Tim Long (neutral to underweight). The basis for the downgrade was weak hardware sales as iPhone 15 demand disappoints. In his note to clients, Long says that "We are still picking up weakness on iPhone volumes and mix, as well as a lack of bounce-back in Macs, iPads and wearables," with "worse data points out of China,…

In a report, Bank of America analysts led by Justin Post, suggest that advertising revenue growth is a distinct possibility, coming from the addition of adverts to Prime Video this month and from other advertising partnerships.

There is a relationship between the 10-year real rate and the SPX500. The correlation coefficient between the two is a robust -87%. I.e. they generally travel together but in opposite directions. This makes sense given the time value of money of the SPX500, where a lower real rate will tend to support the stock market.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $45,280. This is the highest level the cryptocurrency has traded at since April 2022. The price support is due to market anticipation of an approval for a spot bitcoin exchange trade fund.

Alphabet (GOOG.us) is trading at levels last seen in April 2022, with $145.00 being regarded as overhead resistance (red vertical line). There are some promising technical developments, which if maintained, should see GOOG.us overcome this overhead resistance.

UK headline CPI printed at 3.9%, much lower than the previous print of 4.6%, and below the forecast of 4.3%. The decline is broad-based, and the Bank of England (BoE) will note the moderation in services inflation. This has fuelled speculation that the BoE will cut rates next year. In this regard, British bond yields declined on the inflation news.

Apple will stop selling two versions of its smartwatch in the US. This is because the US International Trade Commission found that these violate a patent held by medical technology group Masimo.

The Fed, yesterday, held the policy rate steady at 5.25-5.5%, which was largely expected. However, it did surprise with a dovish tone maintaining that growth “has slowed” and “inflation has eased.” The dot plot showed an extra cut for 2024, now numbering 75bps as opposed to 50bps as signalled in the September update. Moreover, the final hike as per September was omitted so the Fed funds rate is now 4.6%…

Core inflation for November printed at 4%y/y, which is unchanged, whilst headline inflation did moderate at 3.1% y/y (3.2%), albeit the pace of disinflation slowed from a month ago. The core month-on month reading was 0.3%, which equates to an annualised 3.66% - still higher than the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. This combined with the higher than anticipated jobs data has put a dampener on the prospects of rate…