Will Bitcoin steal gold’s ‘store of value’ market share? [Video]

Market mood turned sour in the US trading yesterday, and the latest data showed that 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November. 4.5 million is a lot of job departures, but there is nothing the Federal Reserve (Fed) could do about it, as the root cause of the problem is not the lack of job openings. Today’s ADP data is expected to reveal that the US economy added 400’000 private jobs in December. That would be less than a tenth of what has been lost in November. So the question is, does the jobs data even matter anymore?

US equity indices retreated yesterday, and yesterday’s price action is mostly driven by higher interest rate expectations.

In the forex, the US dollar remains strong, and that strength is pushing the EURUSD below the 1.13 mark. The sterling bulls, however, defend well their territory against a broadly stronger US dollar and a push above the 100-DMA, near the 1.3560 mark, should throw a basis to a medium term bullish reversal in Cable.

In cryptocurrencies, appetite in Bitcoin remains contained near the 200-dma and the coin is testing the low end of the December horizontal channel base, which is near $45K level. One explanation for the lack of appetite is the rising US yields, which are applying a visible downside pressure on the pricing of cryptocurrencies.

And gold is now trading above both its 50, 100 and 200-DMA, but the positive attempt to the $1830 level remained short-lived. It will be interesting to see how the rising US yields, which increases the opportunity cost of holding the non-interest-bearing gold, will play out in the coming months for gold investors.