Key Points
- Today, the March consumer-price index came in and it’s hotter than expected, 3.5%.
- Economists were expecting annual inflation to quicken to 3.4%.
- Bitcoin fails to maintain the important level of $69k.
The March consumer price index (CPI Report) came in today. The consumer price rose 3.5% from a year ago in March, and this is higher than expected. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% gain and a 3.4% year-over-year level.
CPI hotter than expected
U.S. CPI: +3.5% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +3.4%) U.S. CORE CPI: +3.8% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +3.7%)— TF Metals Report (@TFMetals) April 10, 2024
Earlier, The Wall Street Journal was revealing that economists were expecting annual inflation to quicken to 3.4%.
In both January and February, inflation proved to be higher than anticipated, according to WSJ.
Taming inflation is key to the Federal Reserve’s deliberation about when to cut interest rates.
The CPI is a broad measure of goods and services costs across the economy, and it rose 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.5%, or 0.3 percentage points higher than in February.
CNBC also noted that excluding volatile food and energy components, “core CPI also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared to respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.”
Bitcoin’s price fails to remain above $69k following the CPI report
At the moment of writing this article, BTC is trading below $69k on CoinMarketCap. BTC is priced below $68k.
On X, trading resource Material Indicators highlighted recently that whales are attempting to draw prices lower in order to enter fresh long positions.
The blocks of liquidity on both sides of the price are reportedly moving down, and this is an indication that whales who shorted are trying to push the price down to reach profit targets before flipping long.
This behavior is usually seen around economic reports, and as today’s Core Inflation numbers turned out to be hot, they will likely be able to extend the downside move.
#FireCharts shows blocks of liquidity on both sides of price are moving down. This is an indication that whales who shorted are trying to push price down to to reach profit targets before flipping long.
We've seen this behavior frequently around economic reports. If Wednesday's… pic.twitter.com/TpSAELmfVe
— Material Indicators (@MI_Algos) April 9, 2024
The notes from Material Indicators state that what usually happens in such scenarios is that whales long the dip and exploit the upside liquidity void that they have just created for a relatively quick move upwards.
Bitcoin is now nine days ahead of its halving event scheduled for April 20.
Earlier today, we revealed that in a recent interview with Bloomberg, Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. CEO Fred Thiel said that Bitcoin’s halving rally is partially priced in.
Thiel said that he believes that the BTC ETFs approval, which has obviously been a massive success, has attracted capital into the market and brought forward “what could have been the price appreciation we typically would have seen three to six months post halving.”