What's new

Weekly Forex Forecast and Cryptocurrencies Forecast

4.00 star(s) 5 Votes
As for the forecast for the coming week, summarizing the views of a number of experts, as well as forecasts made on the basis of a variety of methods of technical and graphical analysis, we can say the following:

- EUR/USD. So far, the situation seems to be still in favor of the dollar. In anticipation of the explosive growth of the US economy, investors are ready to turn a blind eye to another increase in the country's national debt, which will follow the next package of economic stimuli. The yields on long-term treasuries are growing, and the spread between US and European bonds is growing, strengthening the dollar, and putting pressure on the European currency. Thus, the yield of 10-year American state bonds has already reached about 1.15%, and the growth potential has not yet been exhausted. Here you can also recall the statements of Christine Lagarde that the ECB is not at all against the weakening of the euro.
The above has led to the fact that 70% of experts, supported by 85% of oscillators, 70% of trend indicators and graphical analysis on D1, agreed that the dollar will continue to grow in the coming days, and the EUR/USD pair to fall. Support levels are 1.1950, 1.1885, 1.1800 and 1.1750. However, the situation is changing with the transition from weekly to monthly forecast and here it is already 60% of experts together with graphical analysis who are waiting for the pair to return to the zone 1.2200-1.2300. The target is the January high of 1.2350, the nearest resistance is 1.2175.
As for important economic events in the coming week, we can note data on consumer markets in Germany and the United States, which will be released on Wednesday February 10;

- GBP/USD. Will the market still be able to maintain its bullish optimism about the British currency for some time? 65% of analysts believe that at least briefly the pair will still succeed, breaking through the resistance of 1.3750, to rise to the height of 1.3800, and possibly 25-50 points higher. Graphical analysis, 85% of oscillators as well as 100% of trend indicators on H4 and D1 agree with this. However, 15% of oscillators are already giving clear signals about the pair being overbought.
The remaining 35% of experts consider the 1.3700-1.3750 zone as an insurmountable obstacle, according to them, having broken through the support at 1.3700, the pair will first go down 100 points and then reach the 1.3485-1.3500 zone.
Among the events to which attention should be paid, of interest are the speech of the head of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey on Wednesday, February 10, and the publication of GDP data for the IV quarter of 2020 on Friday, February 12;

- USD/JPY. Most experts (70%) supported by graphical analysis on D1, 75% of oscillators and 80% of trend indicators, expect the pair to continue to grow at least up to 106.00-106.25 zone. The next goal is 107.00. The nearest resistance is 105.75.
The remaining 30% of analysts believe that the pair will return to the level of 104.00, and graphical analysis on H4 predicts an even greater drop, to the low of January 21, 103.30. Supports are at 104.75, 104.00 and 103.50 levels.

- cryptocurrencies. What is good, and what is bad.
The support of cryptocurrencies from large institutional investors is, of course, good. It can provide further growth for bitcoin. However, the fact that the crypto market now largely depends on the sentiments of this rather small group, and that, in turn, on the sentiments of government officials, is bad, and can lead to a collapse of the quotes. A clear example is the January drop in the BTC/USD pair by 30%.
However, government actions can not only put pressure on the crypto market, but also push it up. Thus, US President Joe Biden has confirmed his readiness for a new stimulus package for almost $2 trillion. And this is good, since with an almost 100% probability, some of these funds will flow to the digital asset market.
But, for example, is Chinese New Year good or bad? It is definitely good for people, a fun holiday, gifts, fireworks... But, according to a number of experts, on the eve of this joyful event, the value of bitcoin may fall again. Moreover, in this case, the price of the main coin is threatened not by the central banks, but small investors, who will begin to transfer their crypto assets to fiat for the purchase of New Year's gifts.
Currently, it is in China that the bulk of the owners of bitcoin wallets with savings of up to 10 thousand dollars are concentrated. And, according to the specialists of the investment company Stack Funds, “since it is customary to celebrate the New Year in China very splendidly, small investors will definitely begin to withdraw funds before the holidays. In addition, - they explain, “charts over the past few years show that it is in the run-up to the holidays that the capitalization of bitcoin is greatly reduced.” We do not have long to wait for either a confirmation or a refutation of this prediction: the New Year in China is this Friday, February 12, and the holidays will last from February 11 to 17.
Now about Ethereum. This leading altcoin continues to deliver impressive results. It has increased in price by 130% since the beginning of the year, and its increase was 448% in 2020. The main impact on such dynamics is the expectation of the launch of futures on it on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which is scheduled for Monday, February 8.
The forecasts for this event are mixed. Optimists (and they are the majority) recall that the launch of bitcoin futures on the CME allowed this cryptocurrency to break the $20,000 mark at the end of 2017. Pessimists say that it was this event that marked the beginning of the crypto winter of 2018. So, the question of whether futures is good or bad remains open.
In December 2020, when the BTC/USD pair reached its previous high of $20,000 and ETH/USD was still very far from its similar mark, we noted a significant potential for the Ethereum growth. Now a similar situation is observed with another token, Litecoin, which we have not thought about for a long time.
This coin appeared in October 2011, becoming an early fork of bitcoin, from a technical point of view is almost identical to it. Litecoin's all-time high of $370 was recorded on December 19, 2017. Then crypto winter came and, a year later, the price of the coin dropped to $20, having lost almost 95% of its value. At the moment, the quotes of the LTC/USD pair are at the level of $155, which is more than twice below its historical maximum, which can lead to its growth. Moreover, Litecoin even surpasses the main cryptocurrency in some important parameters. So, for example, the transaction speed with it is four times higher than with bitcoin.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
CryptoNews


- Forbes compiled a list of the wealthiest representatives of business in the field of cryptocurrency, following the results of 2020. It is headed by the CEO of the Coinbase crypto-exchange Brian Armstrong with $6.5 billion, followed by the head of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange Sam Bankman-Freed with $4.5 billion and the co-founder of Ripple Chris Larsen - $2.9 billion.
The ranking also includes: the head of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor - $ 2 billion, CEO of the Binance exchange Changpeng "CZ" Zhao - $1.9 billion, the founders of the Gemini exchange, the Winklevoss brothers - $1.6 billion each, founder of the venture capital company Digital Currency Group Barry Silbert - $1.5 billion , co-founder and former CTO of Ripple Jed McCaleb - $1.4 billion, venture capitalist Tim Draper - $1.1 billion and co-founder of blockchain startup Bloq Matthew Roszak - $1 billion.
When preparing the rating, the Forbes magazine took into account not only the value of the digital assets of the persons involved, but also their traditional assets, including the shares of various companies.

- According to Reuters, the German prosecutor's office is unable to access a wallet with more than 1,700 bitcoins with a total value of about $75 million. The account holder, who was found to be a fraud, refuses to testify against himself and provide access keys. Currently, law enforcement officers are looking for ways to "get close" to these assets through exchanges and wallet operators in order to return them to the victims of the criminal.
The fraudster was sentenced to two years in prison for installing phishing software on third-party computers, with which he deducted funds from the victims' accounts and transferred them to his own wallet. The prosecutor explained that the offender was offered mitigation of punishment if he provided data on the whereabouts of the coins, but he refused. The size of the criminal's assets has significantly increased against the background of the latest bitcoin rally, and it is possible that he is going to use them after his release.

- American children's charity Songs of Love created Superhero Billy Bitcoin to boost interest in their work. Crypto donations to such non-profit organizations in the United States are tax-free. “Donating in a cryptocurrency like bitcoin is even more efficient than cash. You don't have to pay capital gains tax and can deduct that amount from your taxes,” said Songs of Love. The fund accepts donations in 22 digital assets, and the Superhero Billy Bitcoin is dedicated to supporting children with serious illnesses.

- The price of bitcoin could rise to $100,000 as early as the end of 2021 if other companies follow Tesla's lead, the founder of cryptobank Galaxy Digital Mike Novogratz said in an interview to Bloomberg . Elon Musk's company announced the investment of $1.5 billion in Bitcoin on Monday, February 8. Tesla admitted that in the future they will integrate the first cryptocurrency as a means of payment for their products.
Novogratz called Elon Musk a genius in his decision to listen to people and evaluate the interests of young people. According to the billionaire, other companies will invest in the first cryptocurrency to hedge inflation risks. “You'll see that every company in America will soon start doing the same,” stated Mike Novogratz.

- Due to the shortage of discrete graphics cards in the market, gaming laptops have become popular among Chinese Ethereum miners. As calculated by the Techarp portal, the payback period for such a computer costing from $1000 is approximately three and a half months.
One laptop with a RTX 3060 video card is able to get 0.00053 ETH ($0.92 at the moment) within two hours. That is, the mining will amount to 2.3 ETH (over $4000) for the year, and a farm of 20 laptops at current prices and taking into account the cost of electricity in China will bring more than $76,800 in profit.

- North Korea has been able to upgrade its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles by using funds stolen in cyberattacks, to finance. According to the Associated Press citing UN experts, these attacks mainly targeted financial institutions and cryptocurrency platforms, and the total amount of the digital assets stolen in the period from 2019 to November 2020 is more than $316 million. Experts say North Korea continues to launder cryptocurrencies stolen by its hackers mostly through Chinese over-the-counter platforms.

- The authorities arrested a 37-year-old Wisconsin resident on charges of attempting to arrange a bespoke homicide. This is stated in the message of the US Department of Justice. The woman found the killer on the darknet, offering to pay for his "work" in cryptocurrency, and provided him with a phone number, place of work and a description of the alleged victim.
Journalists of one of the media learned about the upcoming crime while working on material about transactions in the darknet. They found evidence of a Bitcoin transaction, as well as a screenshot of a wallet with $5,633 in cryptocurrency, after which the reporters contacted the law enforcement. Now the alleged customer faces up to 10 years in prison.

- One of Mexico's richest people (the fortune of $11.7 billion) and founder of Grupo Salinas group of companies Ricardo Salinas Pliego added a Bitcoin hashtag to his Twitter account description. Recall that the founder of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk did the same in January, after which the asset rose to $38,000.
Earlier Pliego admitted in a Cointelegraph commentary that he first bought digital gold in 2013. He sold the asset at $17,000 during a bull rally in 2017 and called the bitcoin “the best investment of all time.”

- Specialists of financial and investment company Guggenheim Partners said that the value of bitcoin could reach $600,000. According to the company's investment director, Scott Minerd, everything will depend on the number of coins in the public domain. “Cryptocurrency can rise to very high values. It is possible that we are talking about 400 or even $600,000 per coin. We have been studying the asset for almost ten years, so we understand how it will behave. Bitcoin used to be unjustified for institutional investors, but now everything has changed,” Minerd said.
According to the specialist, the concern is caused by the rapid growth of the asset in the past few weeks. It is possible that we are talking about speculation, in which institutional investors capable of large investments to manage the value of the coin are involved. At present, bitcoin is in a difficult situation, as the departure of large investors will lead to a return of the negative trend. According to Minerd, such a development is unlikely, but it should definitely be taken into account.


#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
Forex Forecast and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for February 15 - 19, 2021


First, a review of last week’s events:

- EUR/USD. It often happens that monthly forecasts come true faster than weekly ones. That was what happened this time as well. Recall that only 30% of experts expected the EUR/USD pair to grow in the weekly perspective. In the transition to the monthly forecast, those were in majority already, 60%.
We started talking about the paradoxes of the relationship between stock indices and the dollar seven days ago. With the outbreak of the pandemic at the end of last February, an inverse correlation was clearly visible between them: thanks to fiscal stimulus (QE), lower interest rates and pumping the US economy with cheap money, the S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq stock indices went up, and the DXY dollar index - way down. And that was logical.
And here came 2021, and everything turned upside down. Against the backdrop of good economic data and expectations of a new injection of financial "vaccine" for almost $2 trillion, the growth of risk sentiment and stock indices continued. But in parallel, the yield of long-term US Treasury bonds and the dollar grew.
But the surprises with overturns did not end there. Based on the same fiscal incentives and rapid vaccination in the United States, Wall Street Journal experts are raising their forecasts for US GDP for 2021 from 4.3% to 4.9%. In Europe, the opposite is true: there are a lot of delays with vaccination, the EU countries, one after another, are tightening anti-covid measures once again, there is no end in sight to lockdowns. As a result, the European Commission lowers its forecast for the Eurozone economy to 3.9%. But at the same time, the euro is growing, and the American currency is falling.
According to a number of experts, it's all about the long-term policy of the US Fed, which is not going to wind down the QE program until the end of 2021 and will not raise interest rates on the dollar earlier than 2023. This should lead to the recovery of not only the American but also the global economy, including the EU, making the euro a reasonably attractive currency for some, primarily Chinese, investors. China's interests in Europe are great, and appetites are constantly growing, which supports the demand for a pan-European currency.
As a result, having started at 1.2050, the EUR/USD pair rose by 100 pips and reached a weekly high at 1.2150 on Thursday, February 11. This was followed by a correction and a finish at 1.2120;

- GBP/USD. The released macro statistics looks quite contradictory. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, investment cuts and Brexit problems, UK GDP contracted 9.9% which is a record drop in more than 300 years. At the same time, monthly and quarterly GDP were better than expectations. GDP growth in Q4 2020 amounted to +1%. Industrial production figures were lower than forecasted, but the trade balance report pleased investors.
Solid monetary policy of the Bank of England, positive interest rate, and the first in Europe and third in the world (after Israel and the UAE) in terms of vaccination rates also played on the side of the pound. At the time of writing this review, 20.67% of the country's population was already vaccinated (the figure in the USA is 14.02%).
Recall that the majority of analysts (65%) also sided with the British currency. The main forecast assumed that the pair would succeed, having broken through the resistance at 1.3750, to rise to the height of 1.3800, and possibly 25-50 points higher. And so it all happened: the high of the week was fixed at 1.3865, and the last chord of the GBP/USD pair set at 1.3850.

- USD/JPY. The movement of this pair in most cases depends on what is happening not in Japan, but in the United States, on where stock indices, as well as the yield of American state bonds and the DXY dollar index are moving. This happened last week as well.
DXY climbed to 91.21, USD/JPY grew to 105.66 on February 8. On February 10, the dollar index dropped to 90.26, followed by a bottom at 104.40. On February 12, we see an increase in the DXY to 90.71 and an increase in USD/JPY to 105.17, then a slight drop: in the index to 90.39, in the pair to 104.95. So, if anyone wants to try the DXY as a leading indicator for this pair, they can try it;

- cryptocurrencies. At the end of 2020, Forbes compiled a list of the wealthiest representatives of the cryptocurrency business with capitals of over $1 billion. The top three included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong with $6.5 billion, FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried with $4.5 billion and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen with $2.9 billion. In total, Forbes counted 11 billionaires, although, given the rise in the price of digital assets in January-February, there may have already been more of them. Suffice it to say that the total cryptocurrency market capitalization increased by 87% in less than a month and a half in 2021, from $776 billion to $1,452 billion.
The past week was one of the most successful this year. The rally began with the news that Tesla bought $1.5 billion of bitcoins. At the same time, its head, Elon Musk, said that he plans to sell cars of this brand for cryptocurrency in the near future. Bitcoin went up in price by 23% on this news, on February 8.
But this did not end there. Global payments giant MasterCard has announced that it plans to provide merchants with the ability to receive payments in cryptocurrency starting later this year. As a result, bitcoin once again renewed all-time highs, reaching $48,930 in the afternoon of Friday, February 12. The capitalization of BTC has risen to $885 billion at the moment and exceeded the volume of the money supply of such a large country as Russia, for the first time.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has reached 92 (it was 81 a week ago) and is in the overbought zone. At the same time, the BTC Dominance Index has decreased from 70.36% to 61.06% since the year started. But, according to many experts, this does not indicate a deterioration in investor attitudes towards bitcoin, but an improvement in their attitude towards altcoins.
So, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launched trading in Ethereum futures on Monday, February 08. The turnover reached $30 million on the very first day, and the open interest - $ 20 million, which indicates the stable interest of investors in this token. The capitalization of ETH has increased by 32% since the year started and amounts to more than $203 billion as of February 12.
Another top coin that we have already paid attention to in the previous review is Litecoin. Over the past three months, aggregate open interest in LTC futures has grown by 285% to $584 million. And, although the share of Litecoin in the total cryptocurrency market capitalization is quite small (8th place with 0.85%), it now occupies an honorable 3rd place among derivatives after bitcoin and Ethereum.


continued below...
 
As for the forecast for the coming week, summarizing the views of a number of experts, as well as forecasts made on the basis of a variety of methods of technical and graphical analysis, we can say the following:

- EUR/USD. Throughout the coming week, China is celebrating the New Year, which will cause a significant portion of trade volumes to leave the global markets. However, this does not at all promise a calm or a decrease in volatility. Although right now, investors are at a crossroads. US stock indices, after a powerful upward leap in January, have gradually moved to consolidation and look overbought. No surprises are expected from the Fed any time soon, and the report of the Open Market Committee meeting on Thursday February 18 is likely to be boring enough. On the same day, the report on the ECB meeting on monetary policy will be released, but it will be highly likely filled mostly with general streamlined phrases. Therefore, the main drivers for the EUR/USD pair will again be news about the successes in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
As for experts, 60% of them, together with graphical analysis for H4 and D1, expect the pair to decline, at least, to support 1.2050. In case of a breakout, the next target for the bears will be the February 05 low at 1.1950. The nearest support is in the 1.2100 zone.
40% of analysts adhere to the opposite scenario. However, when moving from weekly to monthly forecast, the number of bulls' supporters increases to 60%. 85% of trend indicators on H4 and D1 are also painted green. But the readings of the oscillators on both timeframes cannot be analyzed: there is complete chaos of red, green and neutral gray colors there. The nearest resistance level is 1.2150. The bulls' targets are first a return of the pair to the 1.2200-1.2300 zone, and then the January high at 1.2350.
As for the economic calendar of the week, in addition to the already mentioned meetings of the Fed and the ECB, we are waiting for: on Tuesday, February 16 - data on GDP of the Eurozone, on Wednesday, February 17 - data on retail sales in the United States (a noticeable increase from -0.7% to + 0.7% is expected), and at the end of the working week, on Friday, February 19, statistics on business activity of Markit in Germany and the EU will be published (here, although not so noticeable, but still growth is predicted);

- GBP/USD. A quarterly GDP growth of 1% means that the country has every chance of getting out of the recession. The high rates of vaccination will also contribute to this (although there are concerns about new strains of coronavirus). Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to unveil a plan to exit the quarantine towards the end of the month, or rather February 22, which should clarify the prospects for the recovery of the UK economy.
In the meantime, analysts' votes have been distributed as follows: the pound has reached 34-month highs, and 45% of experts believe that it would be time for it to stop and play back a little down. 20% vote for the continued growth of the pair, while the remaining 35% take a neutral position. 100% of trend indicators and 75% of oscillators on H4 and D1, together with graphical analysis on H4, point north, targets are 1.3900 and 1.3950. The remaining 25% of the oscillators give signals that the pair is overbought.
As for the graphical analysis on D1, it shows a rebound from the resistance of 1.3865 and the decline first to support in the zone 1.3700, then 1.3630 and 1.3575.
As for economic statistics, one should pay attention to data on the UK consumer market, which will be released on Wednesday February 17, and business activity in the service sector on Friday February 19;

- USD/JPY. Graphical analysis on D1 predicts the movement of the pair in the channel along the Pivot Point 104.85 during the month. Moreover, it will first rise to the upper border of the channel at 105.75, and then descend to its lower border at 104.40. On H4, the oscillation amplitude is naturally less, from 104.85 to 105.30.
Apart from the green colored 75% of the trend indicators on D1, the readings of the other indicators and oscillators look quite confusing. It is also difficult to draw any conclusions from the opinions of experts, who are divided almost equally: 40% for the growth of the pair, 30% for its fall and the same amount for the sideways movement.
The GDP data for the IV quarter of 2020, which the Japanese Cabinet of Ministers will publish on Monday February 15, may somehow influence the formation of the short-term trend of the USD/JPY pair, especially if this indicator differs greatly from the forecasted +2.3%;

- cryptocurrencies. We wrote about bitcoin's readiness to storm the $50,000 high two weeks ago. And its rise to $48,930 on February 12 is a clear confirmation of the correctness of this forecast, which is supported by 80% of experts in a monthly perspective.
The growth of bitcoin and other top coins pulls up the entire crypto market. Its members look forward to following the example of Tesla and MasterCard and other S& P500 companies listed on the NYSE to announce their readiness to work with digital assets. As, for example, did the Bank of New York Mellon, which said it would allow digital currencies to pass through the same financial network that it uses for traditional financial assets.
The fact that every company in America will soon follow the example of Tesla, was mentioned by the founder of the crypto bank Galaxy Digital Mike Novogratz in an interview with Bloomberg. According to the billionaire, this will help bitcoin grow to $100,000 by the end of this year.
In the longer term, the BTC/USD pair may rise even to $600,000. At least, this is the opinion of specialists of the financial and investment company Guggenheim Partners. According to the company's investment director, Scott Minerd, everything will depend on the number of coins in the public domain. “Cryptocurrency can rise to very high values. It is possible that we are talking about 400 or even $600,000 per coin... Bitcoin used to be unjustified for institutional investors, but now everything has changed,” Minerd said.
According to the specialist, the concern is caused by the rapid growth of the asset in the past few weeks. It is possible that we are talking about speculation in which institutional investors are involved, capable to manage the value of the coin with the help of large investments. So far, bitcoin is in a difficult situation, as the departure of large depositors will lead to a return of the negative trend. This development of events is unlikely, says the director of Guggenheim Partners, but it should definitely be taken into account.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
CryptoNews


- Kiss bassist Gene Simmons invested a seven-figure sum in bitcoin. According to him, he bought the cryptocurrency several months ago at a time when it was almost twice as cheap as it is now. Simmons did not name the exact amount of the investment but noted that he had already managed to seriously increase his capital.
“Many people wonder if I believe in a further growth in the value of bitcoin. Of course, I do. Otherwise, I would not have spent money on a dubious asset. The future has already arrived, and new tools for earning and storing savings are appearing in our lives,” Simmons explained.

- Lisa Edwards, sister of self-proclaimed bitcoin creator Craig Wright, predicted that the first cryptocurrency would rise to $142,000. Based on Elliott Wave Theory, she suggested that digital gold would rise to $90,000 by May 2021, decline to $55,000 by January 2022, and skyrocketing to $142,000 in March 2023. After that, according to Edwards, the cryptocurrency market expects a bearish trend.
“Satoshi Nakamoto did not consider supply and demand. In a closed market with high demand and limited supply, the price can increase in large leaps, leading to significant increases in short periods,” she wrote.

- As the CoinDesk publication reports, the income of bitcoin miners over the past week reached a new maximum of $354 million against the background of the movement of the first cryptocurrency to the $50,000 mark. The previous record figure in seven days was $340 million and was recorded in December 2017.

- BNY Mellon, the oldest bank in the United States, announced the start of work with bitcoin and other digital assets through the launch of a new cryptocurrency storage service. According to CNBC, the bank will allow cryptocurrencies to pass through the same financial network that it currently uses for traditional assets like treasuries and stocks.
Roman Regelman, head of digital at BNY Mellon, said the financial institution is proud to be the first global bank to announce plans to provide integrated services for crypto assets. He noted that the bank will be able to start offering these services to clients this year.

- Another major US bank, JPMorgan Chase is ready to support bitcoin trading if clients are interested in it, announced the bank's co-president and chief operating officer Daniel Pinto. “If, over time, an asset class develops that will be used by various managers and investors, we will have to get involved,” he told CNBC. "There is no demand yet, but I'm sure it will appear at some point."
It became known that JPMorgan Chase organized a virtual meeting in January with the participation of thousands of traders and sales professionals from different parts of the world, during which it inquired about their interest in trading BTC.
Last week, according to CNBC, another bank, Goldman Sachs, convened a closed forum for employees and clients with the participation of Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, where he spoke about bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets.

- The owner of the Vietnamese Internet cafe Star Computer has redesigned the business to mine Ethereum. The idea came to the entrepreneur after the number of visitors to the computer club dropped markedly due to restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. “I am changing the business model: the profit is higher than from the main activity,” he announced.

- Bloomberg said that the founder of Telegram Pavel Durov bought $750 worth of bitcoins about four years ago. According to the publication, after the sale of a stake in the social network VKontakte he founded, the entrepreneur left Russia, owning $300 million and 2,000 BTC. At the moment, the cost of his initial investment in the leading cryptocurrency has reached $100 million.

- Another piece of news regarding Telegram. Telecommunications company T-Mobile has become a defendant in the lawsuit. California resident Calvin Cheng has filed a lawsuit in New York City after losing $450,000 as a result of SIM swapping - an account hack through SIM swapping.
According to Cheng, he acquired the cryptocurrency by negotiating via the Telegram messenger and using a crypto exchange operated by Iterative Capital. A few months later, in May 2020, he received a message, also via Telegram, from the phone number of Iterative Capital co-founder Brandon Buchanan. He offered a higher price for 15 bitcoins. Cheng transferred the cryptocurrency to the specified wallet, but the money for bitcoins never arrived. A few days later, Buchanan notified customers that his accounts had been hacked using SIM swapping.
The co-founder of Iterative Capital used the services of T-Mobile, and Cheng believes that the company violated obligations to protect the personal and financial information of customers, and, in addition, was negligent in hiring and training support staff, and therefore it is obliged to reimburse him for the losses incurred.

- UK police, with the support of Europol, have arrested eight suspects in SIM card fraud. According to law enforcement officers, fraudsters have stolen money and crypto assets worth $100 million. The attacks were carried out throughout 2020 from the UK, and the victims of the scammers living in the United States were "famous influencers, sports stars, musicians and their families."
Fraudsters uploaded identification information from SIM cards of victims' phones to their cards, thus gaining control over their crypto wallets and bank accounts.

- It became known that the Mayor of Miami (USA) Francis Suarez has already taken a number of steps to legalize cryptocurrency as an investment and payment instrument. “We have made bitcoin an available currency for potential investors. In addition, employees can receive salaries in cryptocurrency, which is a huge step forward,” he wrote on Twitter.
New York Mayor and former presidential candidate Andrew Young and Reno, Nevada Mayor Hillary Shiv supported Suarez's decision. And Andrew Young said that he would try to make the financial centre of the world become a centre for cryptocurrencies.
According to a number of experts, such steps and statements by US politicians and officials have a positive impact on the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.


#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
Forex Trend Indicators: Destination, Features, Varieties


Finding patterns, repeatability and historical cyclicality is one of the main tasks of a trader. Some use graphic patterns to look for the silhouettes of geometric shapes. Some study the characteristic price movements: acceleration, braking, and interaction with graphic objects. However, there is a huge category of traders who are engaged in technical analysis of Forex using indicators. They allow you to predict the market, study its various characteristics and use these patterns in your own trading. Even beginners who have just heard about the existence of technical analysis will be able to analyze the market with their help.

One of the largest categories of the entire variety of instruments is Forex trend indicators. They are based on a simple pattern of price movement, namely, the tendency to trend movements. A trend is a forward movement of the price up or down, in which the rewriting of extremes is characteristic. It is formed under the influence of majority positions in the market when there is a prolonged imbalance between buyers and sellers.

By identifying a trend, you shift the likelihood of success of the trade to your own direction. We will tell you in this article what Forex trend indicators are used for, what you should pay attention to when working with them, and what place they can take in the trading system.

Purpose and Methods of Using Trend Indicators

The overwhelming majority of books on technical analysis are based on the fact that the trend is the basis around which strategies are built. You should always stick to its direction and open trades in its direction. A trader must be able to identify it and build trading in its direction. However, it is difficult to determine it in a timely manner and without errors.

This is due to market noise, which blur the overall picture of what is happening. Trend indicators were created to combat it, that, depending on the formula embedded in them, average the price or in other ways indicate the global price movement, helping to determine the direction of future transactions.

Most often, their use is reduced to the filter function in the strategy, when the signals from the oscillator are matched with a global trend. For example, it can be a bundle of EMA and Stochastic, RSI, any other indicators of building channels and levels can be used. If they match in their readings, a trade is opened, and in case of a discrepancy, a trade should not be opened.

In addition to the filter, they can give signals to enter the market. This could be both a change in global and short-term trends. One way or another, indicators of this type can be a source of data for opening future positions by a trader.

In some cases, trend indicators can also be used to set Stop Loss. A prime example is setting a stop order under EMA, where the indicator line is the main pointer to limit risk.

Three Main Trend Indicators

Technical Analysis is world famous for its range of instruments around the world. A huge number of custom developments allows you to create a wide variety of trading systems. As mentioned above, a trader can take any trend-type instrument as a basis and attach an RSI indicator or any other oscillator to it. As a result, you get a balanced basis for developing a trading strategy.

The following TOP-3 trend indicators on Forex can be distinguished among all the tools that the MetaTrader terminal allows you to use. This is Moving Average, MACD, Bollinger Bands. They are present by default in all existing terminals and are considered standard. By the way, NordFX broker allows you to work with them through the MT4 terminal, which can be installed not only on a computer, but even on your mobile phone.

Moving Average Review

The Moving Average indicator is a classic trend indicator that draws a price line on a chart by averaging its value over a specified number of candles. SMA is considered a basic tool for technical analysis. First, it is a medium-arithmetic value, easy to calculate, and therefore was created one of the first. Secondly, many modifications and other indicators have been created on its basis. Thirdly, a trader can implement absolutely any strategy on its basis (Fig. 1).



There are several types of moving averages:

1. Simple moving average (SMA);
2. Exponential Moving Average (EMA);
3. Weighted moving average (WMA).

It is difficult to see the difference between them at a first glance. The fact is that they differ in the type of price averaging, which entails some differences in sensitivity and lag. The last one on the list is the slowest and roughest of market noise. EMA is on the contrary the fastest and is more commonly used in practice.

The line you see on your chart can generate the following signals:

1. Crossing of the line and the price;
2. Crossing of the moving average lines between each other;
3. Average with a large period as a line of support and resistance.

We also want to pay attention to the angles of inclination and the position of price relative to the line. If it is above the line, the current trend is upward, if it is below the line, it is downward. It is worth reminding once again that in strategies Moving Average is almost always used in tandem with oscillators: Stochastic, RSI and others, which help to determine the beginning, continuation or end of the current trend.

A simple example of how the Stochastic indicator exits the overbought zone confirms a downtrend in the SMA and gives a command to open a sell trade is shown in Figure 2 below:

 
MACD Overview

This indicator is sometimes mistakenly considered an oscillator. This is not the case, because it is based on price averaging. The MACD algorithm is based on the convergence and divergence of two Moving Averages, and the histogram shows the distance between them. So MACD, unlike Stochastic or RSI, is not a stochastic oscillator, but a classic trend indicator (Fig. 3).



It is a huge source of signals, as it is able to find short-term and medium-term changes of the trend, generate signals to change the global trend. Its most formidable weapon is divergence. It has become a common signal for a huge number of Forex indicators.

Divergence is a reversal type of signal that is formed due to the mismatch of the extremes of the instrument with the real price. Simply put, if the price curve is still going down, and the indicator curve has already turned upstairs, this is a strong signal that the trend reversal should soon be expected. Thus, MACD, like other reversal indicators, is able not to post facto, but to warn in advance about fractures in price movements. The example is given in Figure 4:



You can see divisions above and below the 0.00 mark on the histogram. At moments when the graph crosses this zero line, a global trend change is fixed. It is clear that if the intersection occurs from bottom up, then the trend has changed from downward to rising. Accordingly, at the reverse level crossing, the trend changes from ascending to descending.

Also note how the MACD histogram interacts with the signal red dotted line. Their intersection generates a signal of a short-term change in the price movement and helps to determine the moment for opening orders either for buy or sell (Fig. 5).



Some Forex traders use this indicator not only together with other technical analysis tools, but also on their own. This is explained by the strength and accuracy of the MACD signals, especially if divergence occurs on the chart.

Bollinger Bands Review

Bollinger Bands round out the top three Forex trend indicators. They are an ordinary moving average, at a distance from which a trading range is built. It is interesting that this indicator is able to find and give the trader information not only about the direction of the trend, but also about the market volatility, as well as give signals to pull back from the boundaries of the range (Fig. 6).



Bollinger Bands demonstrate the strength and potential of the trend with its range. When the channel narrows, a transition from trend to flat or accumulation stage should be expected. Expansion, on the other hand, indicates an increase in volatility and trend activity. Trading can be based on the interaction of the indicator lines and the price, which can bounce back from them, break them or test them. This allows you to trade either on the break, or on the breakdown of the range. Both options will be correct. An example of how the Relative Strength Index indicator works in tandem with Bollinger Bands to rebound from the range boundaries can be seen in Fig. 7:



Strengths and Weaknesses

The strong point of trend indicators is the ability to cut off minor price fluctuations and identify the main trend of its movement. Фlmost all trend instruments use the averaging algorithm to combat market noise. On the one hand, it frees you from noise, makes the market picture clearer and more understandable. On the other side of the scale is the signal delay. Moreover, the more noise the indicator cuts off, the more delayed its signals.

It should also be borne in mind that signals such as, for example, divergence, can occur quite rarely. Therefore, having missed one such signal, you can wait a long time for the next one to appear. Especially if you trade on large time frames.

However, the usefulness and effectiveness of Forex trend indicators is beyond doubt. They allow not to be mistaken with the global direction of the price, due to which they are able to become the basis of a high-quality trading strategy and bring stable profits both in manual trading and in automatic trading with the help of robot advisors.


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
Forex Forecast and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for February 22 - 26, 2021


First, a review of last week’s events:

- EUR/USD. The sharp rise in bond yields in the US and Europe has hit not only the stock market, but also the “carry trade”, providing support to funding currencies, primarily the euro and the US dollar. Recall that the funding currency is usually a currency with a low interest rate. Implementing the carry trade strategy, traders borrow it and then deposit it in another currency, such as developing countries, with a higher rate. And now the fall in risk sentiment has led to an exit from such deals, and the strengthening of both EUR and USD. Apparently, this can explain the consolidation of this pair. And if the preponderance was on the side of the dollar in the first half of the week, then, investors began to buy up the cheaper euro starting from Wednesday, February 17. As a result, having started the week at the level of 1.2120, the EUR/USD pair ended it almost there, at the level of 1.2115;

- GBP/USD. The pound continues to push north, approaching the 2018 highs. The pair broke through the psychologically important level of 1.4000 on Friday, February 19, recording a weekly high at the height of 1.4035. It completed the trading session at the same level 1.4000, after a slight rebound.
The American currency lost to the British one amid weak data from the US labor market. Investors expected a decrease in the number of initial applications for unemployment benefits from 848 thousand to 765 thousand, while, on the contrary, it rose to 861 thousand over the week. The number of secondary applications was not encouraging either, it decreased from 4.558 million to 4.494 million, instead of the forecasted 4.413 million. Investors were fast to recall the statements of the FRS officials that it would take more than one year to return the labor market to the previous levels, and that it was necessary to take new measures to support the US economy.
But the data on the consumer market and business activity, released in the UK last week, looked pretty good. The Markit index in February was at 49.7 against 39.5, only slightly short of 50, the threshold that separates growth in economic activity from its fall. These figures have once again strengthened the confidence of buyers of the British currency that the Bank of England will refrain from allocating new funds under QE and from cutting the interest rate. As a result, the GBP/USD pair went further up, taking the next important milestone - 1.4000;

- USD/JPY. The main trends of this pair, as well as EUR/USD, were determined last week by disappointing data from the US labor market and a sharp rise in government bond yields. The Japanese GDP data released on Monday 15 February, although was significantly better than the forecast (3.0% versus 2.3%), had no effect on market sentiment, once again showing that the rate of this pair is being formed in the USA.
Recall that the opinions of experts last week were divided almost equally: 40% supported the growth of the pair, 30% were for its fall and as much for lateral movement. And, in general, everyone turned out to be right. The pair grew for the first half of the week, reaching a height of 106.20, then it fell, and the finish of the five-day period took place near the place where it had already started on February 08 - at 105.40;

- cryptocurrencies. As we predicted, bitcoin has hit the $50,000 bar and is quoted at $55,000 at the time of writing. Starting from February 01, the main cryptocurrency added about 60% in weight, the growth of Ethereum (ETH/USD) amounted to a little less than 50%, the leader in this three was Litecoin (LTC/USD) with 80%.
In general, the situation for the digital market is quite positive. Even conservative structures such as American banks have turned their views in its direction. The oldest US bank, BNY Mellon, has announced the start of work with bitcoin and other digital assets. Another major US bank, JPMorgan Chase, is also ready to support bitcoin trading. It became known that JPMorgan Chase organized a virtual meeting in January with the participation of thousands of traders and sales professionals from different parts of the world, during which it inquired about their interest in trading BTC. And last week, another bank, Goldman Sachs, held a closed forum for employees and customers on the topic of cryptocurrencies, at which the speaker was Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital.
The statements of a number of US politicians and officials also have a positive impact on the price of digital assets. For example, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced that he had already taken a number of steps to legalize cryptocurrency. “We have made bitcoin an available currency for potential investors. In addition, employees can receive salaries in cryptocurrency, which is a huge step forward,” he wrote on Twitter. Candidate for mayor of New York and former candidate for US President Andrew Young supported his colleague, saying that he will try to make the financial center of the world become a center for cryptocurrencies as well. And St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard called bitcoin a rival for gold.
Institutional investors continue to buy both cryptocurrencies and shares of miners and crypto funds. So, the Grayscale Investments fund added 20,000 ETH to its Ethereum portfolio last week, bringing its volume to $6 billion. Another impetus for the growth of the BTC/USD pair was MicroStrategy's decision to raise another $900 million to buy bitcoins.
Overall, the supply / demand ratio remains in favor of bitcoin: 150,000 BTC coins were mined and almost 360,000 were bought back over the last five months of 2020, and investors hope that this balance will continue in the future.
At the same time, buyers look at the head of Tesla Elon Musk, whose tweets alone push the quotes sharply upward. However, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is now interested in his "creativity" on Twitter, considering that the billionaire's calls to buy digital assets fall under the law on the offer and advertising of securities and can be regarded as unregistered brokerage activities and attempts to manipulate the market. If proven, Elon Musk could face huge fines. In the meantime, the entrepreneur said that he was taking a break and would no longer post tweets, at least in the near future.
As for the total cryptocurrency market capitalization, even without Musk's tweets, it grew over the week from $1,458 billion to $1,625 billion. And the Crypto Fear & Greed Index is slowly but inexorably approaching its maximum value of 100 points. It has now reached 93, which indicates a strong overheating of the market.

continued below...
 
As for the forecast for the coming week, summarizing the views of a number of experts, as well as forecasts made on the basis of a variety of methods of technical and graphical analysis, we can say the following:

- EUR/USD. The European Union is still under blockade of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But in the United States, not everything is as rosy as expected. Weak data on the labor market, the growth of initial applications for unemployment benefits put pressure on the dollar.
It can be understood from the statements of ECB executives that even if bond yields in Europe continue to rise, the bank is unlikely to increase the volume of the quantitative easing (QE) programme. Officials from the Governing Council of the ECB believe that the measures they have taken are quite sufficient, it just takes some time for them to have the maximum positive effect.
The situation is exactly the opposite on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Judging by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's appeals to the US Congress and the Federal Reserve minutes published on February 18, QE volumes will continue to increase. The soft monetary policy will continue until the economy of this country shows steady growth. The next measure will be the adoption of another stimulus package worth $1.9 trillion.
In such a situation it is logical to expect a weakening of the dollar in the medium term, and the rise of the EUR/USD pair first to the zone of 1.2200-1.2300, and then return to the January high of 1.2350. 65% of analysts agree with this scenario. But as for the weekly forecast, the picture is different.
The majority (70%) of experts believe that the pair should retest the support in the 1.2020 zone in the near future and try to reach the February 05 low of 1.1955. This bearish development is supported by 15% of the oscillators on H4 and D1, which give signals that the pair is overbought.
The rest of the oscillators, as well as 75% of the trend indicators, are colored green. But graphical analysis on both time frames draws consolidation in the range 1.2020-1.2155.
As for the events of the week, here the speeches of the head of the ECB Christine Lagarde on Monday 22 February and the head of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell in the US Congress on Wednesday 24 February are of interest, as well as annual data on GDP and the volume of orders for capital and durable goods in the United States to be published on Thursday 25 February;

- GBP/USD. It is clear that 100% of the trend indicators and 85% of oscillators on H4 and D1 point north. The remaining 15% of the oscillators give signals that the pair is overbought. The overwhelming majority of analysts (75%) are also awaiting a correction to the south. True, in their opinion, this may not happen in the coming week, but in the first half of March. Support levels are 1.3950, 1.3850, 1.3775, 1.3600.
The potential for British currency growth has not yet been exhausted so far. And everything will depend on whose structural problems, the US or the UK, will put more pressure on their national currencies. This refers not only to quantitative easing and interest rates, but also the issue and yield of government securities, as well as the risk of high inflation due to excessively high budget spending.
We outlined in the first part of the review how the data from the US labor market affected the pair's behavior. Similar macro statistics on the UK labour market are expected to be released in the coming week, on Tuesday 23 February. And if it looks quite optimistic, you can expect the continuation of the uptrend of the GBP/USD pair. Other events include a speech by the British Prime Minister the day before. Although, most likely, Boris Johnson will do without much specifics, and will enthusiastically talk about the successes of his Cabinet in the fight against the pandemic, the record pace of vaccinations, and how relations with the EU are developing after Brexit;

- USD/JPY ... 104.40-105.40 is the zone that the pair has visited many times over the past 30 weeks. This allows us to speak of it as the Pivot Point of the medium-term sideways channel 102.60-107.00. By the way, the maximum trading range of 440 points on the semi-annual segment is actually not so great. In October, for example, the pair made 240-point throws in just one day.
At the moment, only 35% of experts believe that the pair has not yet completed its movement to the upper border of this trading range. True, 75% of oscillators and 80% of trend indicators on D1 are on their side, which gives additional weight to this forecast. Resistance levels are 105.70, 106.20, the target is 107.00.
The opposite view is held by 65% of analysts, with the number rising to 80% when moving from a weekly to a monthly forecast. They have a similar number of indicators on their side, on H4 this time. Support levels are 105.00, 104.40, 103.60, the target is 102.60.
Graphical analysis shows fluctuations of the pair in the trading range 104.40-106.20 with a predominance of bearish sentiment.

- cryptocurrencies. As bitcoin prices grow, there are fewer buyers in the market. The most cautious ones left back in December, when the coin reached its previous all-time high of $20,000. The next phase of closing long positions followed after bitcoin's rise to $40,000. Only the most die-hard investors and crypto fans have made it to the $50,000 level.
Bitcoin is overbought. But after the price stepped over $55,000 on Friday evening February 19, there was no active sale. The market froze in anticipation. Alarming signals are already coming, though.
First, the share of sellers is growing, which has increased from 18% to 35% over the past two weeks. Second, about 2/3 of traders buy perpetual futures contracts using leverage, resulting in higher funding rates and commission costs while maintaining long positions. And third, the shares of miners went down.
According to CoinDesk, weekly earnings of bitcoin miners reached a new high of $354 million from February 08 to 14. The previous record figure in seven days was $340 million and was recorded in December 2017. But despite this positive, for example, Riot Blockchain Inc shares lost 20% in price only on February 18.
However, according to a number of experts, it is not worth waiting for the onset of a new crypto winter. Though it may be a deep one, it is just a correction. Moreover, at small volumes there is a probability of growth of bitcoin up to $60,000-65,000 even by inertia. And there, a new wave of purchases can be triggered by FOMO - Lost Profit Syndrome (Fear Of Missing Out). After all, fear and greed are known to drive the market.
Lisa Edwards, sister of self-proclaimed bitcoin creator Craig Wright, has predicted that the first cryptocurrency would rise to $142,000. Based on Elliott Wave Theory, she suggested that digital gold would rise to $90,000 by May 2021, decline to $55,000 by January 2022, and skyrocketing to $142,000 in March 2023. After that, according to Edwards, the cryptocurrency market expects a bearish trend.
But even though the growth of the BTC/USD pair may continue in the near future, you need to be very cautious about purchases at current levels. Most analysts consider them to be quite risky and suggest waiting for a rollback, and only then open new long positions.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
CryptoNews


- After bitcoin hit an all-time high of $58,275 on February 21, investors were looking forward to taking the $60,000 high. However, there was a sudden reversal and a sharp drop of 23% to $44,985. According to many experts, the trigger of the massive profit fixation by "whales" was the statement of the former head of the Fed and now the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the speculative nature of cryptocurrency and the possibility of using it for money laundering. According to analyst Sven Henrich, the head of the Ministry of Finance has actually declared war on bitcoin.
“Digital currencies can provide faster and cheaper payments. But there are many issues to be explored, including consumer protection and money laundering,” Janet Yelen said, also mentioning the possibility of launching the Central Bank's own digital currency (CBDC).
The fall in bitcoin could also have been facilitated by the fall in global indices of technology companies, as well as the beginning of a large-scale vaccination against coronavirus.

- According to Bloomberg, against the background of the decline in the bitcoin rate, the head of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, lost the first place in the ranking of the richest people on the planet. Tesla shares fell 8.6%, causing Musk to lose $15.2 billion. Shortly before the decline, the company announced that it had added $1.5 billion in bitcoin to its balance sheet. At the same time, the fall in bitcoin, according to Bloomberg, may be partly related to the statement of Musk himself, who called the prices of cryptocurrencies too high.

- Due to technical failures, some customers of the Philippine crypto exchange PDAX were able to buy bitcoin almost 10 times cheaper than the market price, Bitpinas reports. One of the users admitted that he bought bitcoins for 300,000 pesos ($6,150), while the average market price of BTC was about $50,000, after which he transferred the cryptocurrency to his wallet.
A day later, PDAX sent him a letter demanding the return of the bitcoins, but the buyer's lawyer claims that "the transaction was legitimate, in accordance with applicable laws, and PDAX cannot withdraw transactions unilaterally."
Another client of this crypto exchange unexpectedly found 40 billion Philippine pesos or about 820 million dollars in his account. It is not reported whether he was able to withdraw this "gift" from PDAX.

- Three platforms - Binance, Huobi and OKEx - account for 75% of the total trading volume on crypto exchanges, according to BDCenter Digital. The safest exchanges were Kraken, Coinbase and Binance.
The study showed that the number of cryptocurrency users has almost tripled since 2018 and reached 191 million users from over 150 countries in the third quarter of 2020. At the same time, the researchers emphasize that the availability of an exchange in a country does not mean the actual availability of all its products and functionality. So the purchase of cryptocurrencies using a credit card is supported only by 65% of sites.

- One of the world's largest money transfer services, MoneyGram, refused to use the product based on the XRP token due to the claims of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple. This is stated in a report by the company.
Against the backdrop of SEC claims, in addition to MoneyGram, Coinbase and OKCoin, Galaxy Digital, Bitstamp, B2C2, eToro and Kraken have already refused to support the XRP token. Asset management company Grayscale Investments announced the liquidation of an XRP-based investment trust, and 21Shares has excluded the Ripple token from its traded exchange products.

- Australian authorities have charged a Sydney resident suspected of drug trafficking, money laundering and bitcoin money laundering for a total of $4.3 million. The police found two bags with $1 million in cash in his car, and seized mobile phones, a laptop and a batch of illegal substances from his home.
Recall that in January 2021, the owner of the RG Coins cryptocurrency exchange Rossen Iosifov already received 121 months in prison for laundering about $5 million using digital assets.

- Analysts reviewed publications about cryptocurrency exchanges in various media. Cointelegraph was the leading media outlet by the number of articles. The first place in popularity was taken by English, the second - Russian.
According to BDCenter Digital, 12 out of 100 Twitter posts are about cryptocurrency. In just the week of February 7-14, Twitter users mentioned bitcoin over 675,000 times. The last record was set on January 10, when the weekly number of posts mentioning bitcoin reached 576,000.

- According to a responsible representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, it does not plan to create its own cryptocurrency to accept donations. The church has also refused to accept bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. At the same time, according to Metropolitan Hilarion, believers may well make donations to the church using the phone.

- According to the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets Anthony Pompliano, the main cryptocurrency may reach $500 thousand by the end of this decade, and even $1 million in the long term.
However, the growth of cryptocurrency quotes may stop due to the rapid recovery of the global economy after the recession caused by the coronavirus epidemic. In this case, central banks will begin to roll back their quantitative easing programs, raise interest rates, stop buying assets and printing cheap money. As a result, investment flows into bitcoin, as one of the most attractive safe havens, can dry up very quickly.

- The largest developer of graphics processors, the American technology company Nvidia has announced plans to release a series of video cards specifically for mining the Ethereum cryptocurrency, which is the second after bitcoin. According to CNBC, the new type of GPU is called CMP (Crypto Mining Processor) and can appear in the market already in March 2021.


#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
Two More Awards for NordFX: Best Affiliate Program & Best Forex Broker Middle East 2020


At the end of 2020, the Forex-Awards.com expert council named NordFX Best Forex Broker Middle East. The two-tier NordFX affiliate program was also awarded a prestigious award.



Forex-Awards.com is a team of professionals headquartered in Hong Kong, which specializes in the analysis and evaluation of brokerage companies since 2010, aiming to identify the real market leaders. Based on the opinions of both independent experts and the trader community, Forex-Awards.com employees compile regular ratings of brokers, identifying their strongest and most attractive sides. The winners in each of the 30 nominations are then determined based on the results obtained. A convincing victory was won by the brokerage company NordFX in two of them in 2020.

More than one and a half million accounts have been opened by clients from almost 190 countries during 13 years of NordFX work, among them many traders from the Middle East. Back in 2013, at the 12th MENA Forex Show, the company won the prize as Best Forex Arabic Platform. And now the new award confirms the high level of services that NordFX provides to clients from this region: the first place in the Best Forex Broker Middle East nomination.

Another victory at the Forex Awards was won in the Best Affiliate Program category. Since 2016, thanks to its effectiveness and popularity, NordFX's two-tier affiliate program has been receiving the highest marks. It has been recognized as the best by expert committees of not only Forex-Awards.com, but also by Academy Masterforex-V and Saigon Financial Education Summit. More than 25,000 of the company's partners have already been paid more than $30,000,000 as commission until now, and these figures continue to grow steadily.


#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
Forex Forecast and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for March 01-05, 2021


First, a review of last week’s events:

- EUR/USD. As we expected, the speech by the head of the Fed turned out to be quite interesting. Jerome Powell presented to Congress a semi-annual report on monetary policy, from which it followed that not everything is as good as we would like as far as the recovery of the US economy is concerned. The surge in economic activity in the summer of 2020 was followed by the slowsown of the growth rate. The decline in unemployment has slowed down, and household expenditures are not growing either.
After the unrest and turmoil of 2020, a lot of attention is paid to socio-demographic differentiation, but the picture is not the rosiest either. Unemployment among "white" Americans, according to the Fed, is 5.7%, while among Hispanics - 8.6%, and among African Americans it is even higher - 9.2%. There is also discrimination based on gender: for the last month of 2020, men gained 16,000 new jobs, while women, on the contrary, lost 140,000.
All of the above raises certain doubts about the early recovery of the American economy, leads to a decrease in risk sentiment, and strikes a blow on the stock market and the US dollar. Investors are shifting attention to long-term government bonds. Since the beginning of 2021, the yield on 10-year treasuries has jumped from 0.91% to 1.56%, and their growth has become especially noticeable recently. As for stock indices (especially stocks of technology companies), they, accordingly, go down sharply. For example, the S&P500 was losing up to 3.8% in just two days - February 25-26, while the Nasdaq Composite was sinking by more than 3%. The DXY dollar index is also gradually approaching 2018 lows, losing about 9% this year.
In such a situation, most analysts (65%) expected the dollar to weaken and rise to the 1.2200-1.2300 zone, which happened: at the week's high, February 25, the EUR/USD pair was approaching 1.2245. However, then it seems that investors changed their minds and began to realize that the growing yield of long-term Treasury securities directly affects the growth of rates on current consumer lending. And that immediately brings to mind the 2008 mortgage crisis, which marked the beginning of a series of major bankruptcies. As a result, the dollar strengthened a little and the EUR/USD pair dropped to the zone 1.2070-1.2100 - the place where it has already been several times since last December. This can only say about one thing: the confusion of the market and the lack of clarity about the prospects of the European and American economies;

- GBP/USD. As predicted, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's speech on Monday 22 February, as well as the expectation of positive data from the UK labour market on Tuesday 23 February, continued to push the pair GBP/USD to the highs of 2018, raising it to the height of 1.4240.
And of course, the dynamics of the pair could not but be affected by what was happening in the United States. Therefore, repeating the EUR/USD parabola, the GBP/USD pair went south on Thursday February 25, especially since it was overbought, and some reason was simply needed to take profit on the pound.
On Friday, having lost 355 points, the pair found a local bottom at 1.3885. This was followed by a rebound and a finish at 1.3930;

- USD/JPY. It was said last week that this pair was moving within the medium-term side channel 102.60-107.00. Only 35% of experts believed then that the pair had not yet completed its movement to the upper border of this trading range. True, 75% of oscillators and 80% of trend indicators on D1 were on their side, which gave additional weight to this forecast, which turned out to be absolutely correct. The USD/JPY pair recorded a 26-week high at 106.70 on the second half of Friday, February 26. As for the final chord, it sounded at the height of 106.55;

- cryptocurrencies. We have repeatedly written that the presence of large institutional investors in the crypto market is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can strongly push the market up, and on the other hand, they can crash the quotes if they fix profits. In addition, the actions and sentiments of such institutions are highly dependent on the actions and sentiments of regulators and other government agencies. We felt all this in full last week.
After bitcoin hit an all-time high of $58,275 on February 21, investors were looking forward to taking the $60,000 high. However, there was a sudden reversal and a sharp drop of 23% to $44,985. Then the rebound to $50,000, and a fall again - to $44,000.
According to many experts, the trigger of the massive profit fixation by "whales" was the statement of the former head of the Fed and now the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the speculative nature of cryptocurrency and the possibility of using it for money laundering. According to analyst Sven Henrich, the head of the Ministry of Finance has actually declared war on bitcoin.
“Digital currencies can provide faster and cheaper payments. But there are many issues to be explored, including consumer protection and money laundering,” Janet Yelen said, also mentioning the possibility of launching the Central Bank's own digital currency (CBDC).
The fall in bitcoin could also have been facilitated by the fall in global indexes of technology companies and the beginning of large-scale vaccinations against coronavirus, but the main thing is the position of the US Government.
According to Bloomberg, against the background of the decline in the bitcoin rate, the head of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, lost the first place in the ranking of the richest people on the planet. Tesla shares fell by 8.6%, as a result of which Musk lost $15.2 billion. At the same time, the fall in bitcoin, according to Bloomberg, may be partly due to the statement of Musk himself, who called the prices of cryptocurrencies too high. It is not for nothing that they say that a word is silver, and silence is gold. Musk would be better off keeping his mouth shut ?.
Of course, someone loses, and someone finds. Thus, for example, due to technical failures, some customers of the Philippine crypto exchange PDAX were able to buy bitcoin almost 10 times cheaper than the market price, Bitpinas reports. One of the users admitted that he bought bitcoins for 300,000 pesos ($6,150), while the average market price of BTC was about $50,000, after which he transferred the cryptocurrency to his wallet. A day later, PDAX sent him a letter demanding the return of the bitcoins, but the buyer's lawyer claims that "the transaction was legitimate, in accordance with applicable laws, and PDAX cannot withdraw transactions unilaterally."
Another client of this crypto exchange unexpectedly found 40 billion Philippine pesos or about 820 million dollars in his account. It is not reported whether he was able to withdraw this "gift" from PDAX.
In general, the reliability of crypto exchanges is still a rather painful topic. According to BDCenter Digital agency, Kraken, Coinbase and Binance are the safest exchanges. The brokerage company NordFX can also be noted here, whose clients can also make transactions and store deposits in cryptocurrencies. In the 13 years of this broker, it has not had a single hack and not a single penny of client funds has been lost.
On Friday evening, February 26, the BTC/USD pair is trading in the $46,000 zone. The total market capitalization fell over the week from $1,625 billion to $1,410 billion. AND The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has finally come out of strong overbought zone to neutral levels, dropping from 93 to 55.
When it comes to altcoins, there is both good news and bad news. For example, the largest developer of GPUs - American technology company Nvidia announced plans to release a series of graphics cards specifically for mining Ethereum. According to CNBC, they can be expected to appear on sale this March.
But it looks like the hard times will not end for Ripple. One of the world's largest money transfer services, MoneyGram, refused to use the product based on the XRP token due to the claims of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple. Against the backdrop of SEC claims, in addition to MoneyGram, Coinbase and OKCoin, Galaxy Digital, Bitstamp, B2C2, eToro and Kraken have already refused to support the XRP token. Asset management company Grayscale Investments announced the liquidation of an XRP-based investment trust, and 21Shares has removed the Ripple token from its exchange-traded products. As a result, the Ripple lost up to 45% of its value last week, and the XRP/USD pair was trading at $0.42 on the evening of February 26.

continued below...
 
As for the forecast for the coming week, summarizing the views of a number of experts, as well as forecasts made on the basis of a variety of methods of technical and graphical analysis, we can say the following:

- EUR/USD. The figures given in the first part of the review confirm the opinion of the US Federal Reserve management that it is still very, very early to talk about any curtailment of the quantitative easing (QE) program, as well as about raising interest rates. Therefore, the Fed will continue its soft monetary policy, even as inflation expectations rise caused by a doubling of the Fed's balance sheet over the past year.
However, not only the US has the problem of increasing national debt. Europe is experiencing similar problems, and the interest rate there is even lower than on the other side of the Atlantic. The profitability of European government securities is also growing. Thus, the rate on 10-year bonds in Germany has already reached an 11-month high.
In general, we can say that the balance between the problems and achievements of the Old and New Worlds remains on average at the same level, experiencing minor temporary fluctuations, which is reflected in the three-month sideways trend of the EUR/USD pair. If you look at its chart, it can be seen that, since December 2020, most of the time it moves in a fairly narrow trading range of 1.2050-1.2185, with emissions up to 1.1950 and 1.2350.
If we talk about the short term, 70% of analysts believe that the pair will continue to decline to the 1.1950-1.2000 zone. They are supported in this by 75% of oscillators on H4, the remaining 25% give signals that the pair is oversold. As for the oscillators on D1, there are approximately equal shares of red, green and gray-neutral colors. 95% of the trend indicators on H4 and 65% on D1 are painted red.
But graphical analysis on both timeframes gives preference to the upward movement of the pair. Resistance levels are 1.2170 1.2240 and 1.2270. However, after this push to the north, graphical analysis on D1 draws a decline in the pair during March to support at 1.1950.
And now about the events of the coming week, of which there will be quite a few. Firstly, we are waiting for the speeches of the head of the ECB Christine Lagarde on Monday March 01 and the head of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell on Thursday March 4. Statistics on the consumer markets of Germany and the EU will be released on March 01, 02 and 04. As for the US macro statistics, the indicators of ISM business activity in the manufacturing and private sectors will be known on Monday and Wednesday. And in addition, data on the labor market will be published on Wednesday and Friday. Moreover, according to forecasts, a significant increase in new jobs created outside the US agricultural sector (NFP) is possible - from 49K to 148K;

- GBP/USD. First, the readings of technical indicators. Oscillators: 90% on H4 are looking south, 10% are in the oversold zone; only 15% are looking to the south on D1, 50% to the north, and 35% are neutral. Trend indicators: 80% look south on H4, 20% look north, 25% look south on D1, 75% look north.
Graphic analysis on D1 draws a side trend in the range 1.3860-1.4240. And it is clear that since the pair finished the previous week closer to the lower border of this channel, it will move upward. 60% of experts agree with this forecast. Resistance levels are 1.3960, 1.4055, 1.4085 and 1.4175.
The remaining 30% believe that the pair will break the lower border of the channel 1.3860, then support around 1.3800 and will go to the 1.3600-1.3760 zone. It should be noted that, when moving from weekly to monthly forecast, the number of supporters of the bears increases to 65%.

- USD/JPY. The multi-month downtrend of this pair was stopped on January 06, and it turned north, moving to the upward channel. According to the graphical analysis on D1, the USD/JPY pair has almost reached its upper border now, which is in the zone 106.70-107.00, and should soon bounce back to the south. Such a scenario is supported by 25% of the oscillators giving signals about the pair being overbought. It is clear that the remaining 75% of oscillators and 100% of the indicators on both time frames are colored green so far.
As for experts, a third of them sides with the bulls, a third votes for the bears, and a third takes a neutral stance. However, in the transition from weekly to monthly forecast, 75% of analysts vote for the pair to stay within the medium-term trading range of 102.60-107.00 (it was mentioned in the first part of the review), and therefore await its return to its central zone at 105.00. Support levels are 106.10 and 105.70; The remaining 25% of experts believe that the pair will be able to reach the zone of 108.00-108.50;

- cryptocurrencies. The popularity and prominence of cryptocurrencies continues to grow. According to BDCenter Digital, 12 out of 100 Twitter posts are about cryptocurrency. In just the week of February 7-14, Twitter users mentioned bitcoin over 675,000 times. The last record was set on January 10, when the weekly number of posts mentioning bitcoin reached 576,000. In total, the number of cryptocurrency users has stepped over 200 million people from more than 150 countries.
Despite the drop last week, 2021 started off well for bitcoin overall. The pair started at $28,800 on January 1 and is trading at $46,000 at the time of writing, having gained almost 60%. And now, importantly, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index has finally emerged from a strong overbought state, dropping from 93 to neutral 55.
Of course, this does not mean that the quotes of the BTC/USD pair will immediately fly up. However, what is happening gives investors hope for the fulfillment of the positive predictions of many experts and crypto gurus. recall that Lisa Edwards, sister of self-proclaimed bitcoin creator Craig Wright, has predicted that the first cryptocurrency would rise to $142,000. Based on Elliott Wave Theory, she suggested that digital gold would rise to $90,000 by May 2021, decline to $55,000 by January 2022, and skyrocketing to $142,000 in March 2023.
According to the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets Anthony Pompliano, the main cryptocurrency may reach $500 thousand by the end of this decade, and even $1 million in the long term.
However, the growth of cryptocurrency quotes may stop due to the rapid recovery of the global economy after the recession caused by the coronavirus epidemic. In this case, central banks will begin to roll back their quantitative easing programs, raise interest rates, stop buying assets and printing cheap money. As a result, investment flows into bitcoin, as one of the most attractive safe havens, can dry up very quickly.
So, what did we observe last week - a temporary correction or the beginning of a new "crypto winter"? The question is still open. However, the overwhelming majority of experts (70%) believe that the BTC/USD pair will reach the $ 60,000-75,000 zone in spring. The pessimism of the remaining 30% of analysts is expressed in the figures of $30,000-35,000.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
CryptoNews


- The trading volume on cryptocurrency exchanges in February exceeded $1 trillion. Such numbers were achieved for the first time in history, according to experts. Even during the first bitcoin rally, the trading volume reached only $650 billion. According to experts of the analytical platform Block Research, large investors prefer to carry out transactions from one account to another through third-party services in order to maintain complete anonymity. Therefore, the real number of transactions can even be twice the official amount.

- Users of the Opera browser will be able to carry out transactions with many popular cryptocurrencies directly in the browser. “We have added fundamentally new algorithms. We are talking about the Simplex payment processor, which is used in many reliable and reputable cryptocurrency wallets. We are ready to provide services on competitive terms. This is especially true of transaction fees, which we will have as low as possible,” Opera says in a press release. Another benefit would be creating a digital wallet without going to third-party sites.

- A proponent of gold, President of Euro Pacific Capital Peter Schiff congratulated those who managed to buy the first cryptocurrency before take-off and made Wall Street succumb to "this mania." It was just recently, that this bitcoin sceptic called bitcoin the largest bubble in history and unflatteringly spoke about the mental abilities of cryptocurrency investors. And now he has admitted his mistake. “When I first heard about bitcoin, I didn't think that smart investors would be stupid enough to buy bitcoin. I was wrong," Schiff wrote.

- The Google Finance platform has added a tab for monitoring digital asset prices. The new section provides real-time information on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash prices. This block has been added to the sections on the markets of the US, Asia, Europe and "Currencies", and makes it possible to compare the performance of cryptocurrencies with other financial instruments.

- The amount of damage from fraud with digital currencies could double in 2021 and reach $4.5 billion. This This assumption was made by specialists of Kaspersky Lab. Other popular fraudulent schemes include the closure of bitcoin exchanges under the pretext of technical problems or hacker attacks, gaining access to user data using fake applications or websites, and sending out fraudulent emails.

- The head of Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz, has dramatically changed the forecast for the BTC rate for the end of 2021 upwards. “We are watching one group of investors after another,” he writes. “They were Square, MicroStrategy and Tesla corporations. These were insurance companies Mass Financial and others. These are wealthy people. This is ETF. Suddenly, buying bitcoin is no longer insignificant or risky. On the contrary, it has become risky not to have BTC in the portfolio when central banks continue to print money. Our business at Galaxy is booming. We don't have enough time to hire sales managers to reach all the institutional clients who want to understand and participate in the market."
“It feels like,” says Novogratz, “we’ll stay for a bit between $42,000 and $60,000, and then the next big jump to $100,000. I will not be surprised if we reach this mark by the end of this year."

- MicroStrategy bought another 328 BTC for $15 million. It is the first purchase of crypto assets in March, following its February acquisitions worth billions of dollars. And now MicroStrategy has about 90,859 BTC purchased for $2.186 billion at an average price of $24,063 per coin.
Earlier, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said the company will continue to buy digital currency: "We are focusing on two corporate strategies: expanding the enterprise analytics software business and buying and storing bitcoin." Saylor predicts that 7-8 billion people on the planet will have a “bullion of digital gold” in the phone in the long run, which they will use as family savings.

- The Visa payment system is interested in changing the views of bank card holders due to the coronavirus pandemic. For example, a survey it conducted showed that 25% of all credit card holders in South America would like their banks to add the ability of settlements in cryptocurrency. One in four Hispanics expressed a desire to experiment with digital assets and try them out in everyday life.

- Despite the technical limitations for cryptocurrency mining, set in the Sony PlayStation 5 game console, it is quite suitable for this process at the hardware level. This was taken advantage of by a gamer and crypto enthusiast from China named Yifan Gu, who managed to bypass the restrictions and adapted the console for Ethereum mining, gaining a profit of about $50 per week. This is reported by the Gizchina edition.
Earlier, Yifan Gu adapted MacBook Air with Apple M1 chip for mining Ethereum. However, at the current rate of this altcoin, you can earn only $0.14 in one day on the MacBook Air.

- One of the experts in the field of competitive intelligence has suggested that creating and maintaining the long-term hype around bitcoin is not accidental. According to him, in case the American financial elite manages to convince its creditors that having bitcoins is better than dollars, it can transfer all external debt of the US to this cryptocurrency over time. "As soon as this happens, the cryptocurrency will only have to collapse, and America's gigantic debt will actually be zeroed," the expert reflects.

- Cryptocurrency mining requires more and more electricity, which poses a threat to humanity's path to “zero emissions.” This is reported by the Guardian, citing alarming research findings by American scientists. Thus, the amount of energy used to extract bitcoins exceeds the annual energy consumption of entire countries. “We're talking about a few terawatts, tens of terawatts of electricity per year that are used for bitcoin alone,” notes University of New Mexico economics professor Benjamin Jones, calling for measures to regulate cryptocurrency mining to reduce the carbon footprint.

- Financial industry veteran and Fidelity Investments director of macro markets Jurrien Timmer believes that bitcoin has reached the point where it can be considered for investment and hedging inflation risks. “I think gold and bitcoin are great for replacing some of the bonds,” Timmer writes in a paper titled Understanding Bitcoin.
In his opinion, the limit on the maximum number of bitcoins makes this asset very similar to gold. Moreover, the appearance of new bitcoins on the market is constantly slowing down, but the volume of gold production has remained at the same level for half a century.
Timmer's views are in line with those of SkyBridge Capital founders Anthony Scaramucci and Brett Messing. They released an article in January in which they described bitcoin as a mature investment asset, comparable in reliability to gold and bonds.


#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
Forex Forecast and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for March 08 - 12, 2021


First, a review of last week’s events:

- EUR/USD. There is a saying, “a new broom sweeps clean”. If the previous US President Donald Trump were in the shoes of Joe Biden now, he would probably call the head of the Fed Jerome Powell a "traitor" for the fact that his speech on Thursday February 04 literally brought down the stock markets of America. Powell stayed indifferent to the surge in US Treasury yields, which closed at an annual high. At the same time, he hinted at the possibility of premature tightening of monetary policy.
And although the head of the Fed stressed that the economy is far from overheating, and he does not yet see the need to raise the interest rate, the market has had a hint of a possible change in monetary policy. In response, the 10-year Treasury yields rushed up with the dollar, and the stock market rolled down. The S&P500 lost over 120 points and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 300 points.
The decline in stock prices is forcing investors to seek refuge in the dollar. As a result, the DXY dollar index reached a three-month high of 91.83 on Thursday, its growth continued Friday, March 05, and the DXY exceeded 92.00 at the time of this writing.
The data from the US labor market added optimism to investors. The number of new jobs outside the agricultural sector (NFP) increased from 166K to 379K, with the forecast of 182K. As a result, the forecast, for which the majority (70%) of analysts voted last week, turned out to be absolutely correct: the EUR/USD pair continued its movement to the south, reaching a local bottom at 1.1895 and ending the week slightly higher, at 1.1915;

- GBP/USD. Graphical analysis on D1 suggested last week a sideways movement of the pair within 1.3860-1.4240. However, the channel turned out to be narrower: it was trading in the range of 1.3860-1.4000 until Thursday. And then, thanks to the statement of the head of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, the dollar began to grow stronger, and the GBP/USD pair, having broken through the lower border of the channel, dropped to the horizon of 1.3775. The last chord of the five-day period was set at the level of 1.3840;

- USD/JPY. The multi-month downtrend of this pair was stopped on January 6, it reversed and moved north for almost all of 2021. When making a forecast for the last week, a third of the experts sided with the bears, a third took a neutral position, and a third voted for the growth of the pair. And even fewer experts agreed that it would be able to reach the zone 108.00-108.50, they were only 25%. And they were right: the week's high was recorded at 108.60, followed by a slight bounce down and a finish at 108.35.
The reason for the rise of the pair is still the same: against the background of the growth in the yield of American bonds, which outstrips the yield on Japanese securities, investors get rid of such a protective asset with a negative interest rate as the yen. Along with the Japanese currency, gold and the Swiss franc are also particularly affected. In addition, the mentioned statement by Jerome Powell added fuel to the fire, after which the USD/JPY pair reached an eight-month high;

- cryptocurrencies. There is good news for the bulls: Bitcoin hasn't dropped below $43,000. But there is good news for the bears too: Bitcoin has not gone above $52,000. Having drawn a sinusoid, the BTC/USD chart returned on the afternoon of Friday, March 05 to where it started seven days ago. The question of whether this is a correction or the beginning of a new "crypto-winter" remains open.
The news background looks quite controversial as well. Leading payment systems such as Mastercard, Visa and PayPal are playing on the side of the bulls, seeking to attract the "crypto generation". Skrill and Neteller are doing the same. The Opera browser has been enriched with new algorithms that will allow users to perform transactions with many popular cryptocurrencies. Another Opera feature would be creating a digital wallet without going to third-party sites. Such a giant as Google also turned to cryptocurrencies: the Google Finance platform added a tab for monitoring the prices of digital assets.
User activity is growing. The trading volume on cryptocurrency exchanges in February exceeded $1 trillion. Such numbers were achieved for the first time in history, according to experts. Even during the first bitcoin rally, the trading volume reached only $650 billion. According to experts of the analytical platform Block Research, large investors prefer to carry out transactions from one account to another through third-party services in order to maintain complete anonymity. Therefore, the real number of transactions can even be twice the official amount.
However, not everything is as rosy as it seems at first glance. We already wrote that regulators can (and most likely will) become the main problem for digital assets in 2021.
According to analyst Sven Henrich, the head of the USA Ministry of Finance janet Yellen has actually declared war on bitcoin. Her announcement led to a massive profit taking by the whales on February 21-23, and a sharp 23% drop in bitcoin quotes. And now the North American Association of Securities Administrators (NASAA) has published an annual list of the most dangerous financial products, calling cryptocurrencies the top investment risk this year.
In the framework of the struggle of states for control over financial flows, one should not forget about the imminent appearance of the digital yuan, which can deal a serious blow to bitcoin. The United States and a number of other countries do not exclude the possibility of launching their own digital currencies (CBDC) as well.
In the meantime, as we wrote above, the market is at a crossroads. The total market capitalization for the week grew very slightly: from $1,410 billion to $1,444 billion. And the Crypto Fear & Greed Index left the neutral zone (55) again and headed towards the overbought zone, reaching 77 points out of 100 possible.

continued below...
 
As for the forecast for the coming week, summarizing the views of a number of experts, as well as forecasts made on the basis of a variety of methods of technical and graphical analysis, we can say the following:

- EUR/USD. Judging by the latest indicators, the US economy is doing much better. Vaccinations are in full swing, the labor market is recovering, and GDP in the first quarter is ready to grow by almost 10%. According to Jerome Powell, consumer prices may even slightly exceed the target level of 2% as early as this summer.
However, there is still a long way to a complete recovery. It is this weekend, March 06-07, that the Senate will begin voting on amendments to the budget. And if legislators approve them, US citizens will receive a new gratuitous aid of $1,400 per person, and the overall stimulus package (QE) will amount to $1.9 trillion.
This injection of almost 2 trillion new dollars into the market could cause a serious weakening of the US currency and a return of risk appetite for investors. In this case, the sell-off of shares will stop and stock indices will go up again.
When making a forecast for the coming days, most experts (60%) do not exclude the continuation of the downtrend and the fall of the EUR/USD pair to the zone 1.1800. 100% of trend indicators and 75% of oscillators on H4 and D1 are looking down. But the remaining 25% is already signaling that the pair is oversold.
The picture changes radically with the transition to monthly and quarterly forecasts. Here 70% of analysts expect that the scales will tilt towards the euro after the $1.9 trillion in aid appears on the US market, and the pair will go up. Resistance levels are 1.2025, 1.2060, 1.2170, 1.2200 and 1.2270.
As for the events of the coming week, the publication of data on GDP in the Eurozone on Tuesday March 09, statistics on the US consumer market on Wednesday March 10, and Germany on Friday March 12, as well as the decision of the European Central Bank on the interest rate on Thursday March 11should be considered. According to forecasts, the rate is likely to remain unchanged, at zero. Therefore, the press conference of the ECB leadership, which will be held on the same day, will be of greater interest;

- GBP/USD. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey is scheduled to speak on Monday, March 8, where he intends to outline the main parameters of the country's monetary policy while it tries to cope with the financial damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to ING analysts, “overall, fiscal support should highlight the constructive prospects for the pound sterling in the second quarter of 2021. Further fiscal assistance will contribute to economic recovery and make the pound sterling a leader in the currency market of the G10 countries."
But until this happens, 50% of analysts expect that the GBP/USD pair will break through the support in the 1.3775-1.3800 area and rush to the 1.3600-1.3760 zone. This forecast is supported by 85% of trend indicators and 100% of oscillators on H4, but only 65% of their “colleagues” on D1.
25% of experts, supported by graphical analysis on both timeframes, expect the pair to grow, and another 25% have taken a neutral position. At the same time, as in the case of EUR/USD and for the same reasons, the number of bulls' supporters increases to 60% when switching to the monthly forecast. The resistance levels are 1.3900, 1.3950, 1.4000, 1.4085 and 1.4185, the target is the February 24 high of 1.4240;

- USD/JPY. After the pair literally soared by 215 points last week and reached eight-month highs, it is clear that 100% of the trend indicators are colored green. But as for the oscillators, 35% are already signaling fully that it is overbought. Graphical analysis also points to the south. Many traders are afraid to open both long and short positions in such a situation.
As for the experts, the scales have already begun to tilt in favor of a downward correction: there are 50% of bears' supporters now. 25% expect the USD/JPY pair to continue to rise, and another 25% remain neutral. In the transition from a weekly to a monthly forecast, 80% of analysts are already expecting the pair to decline and return to the 105.00 zone. Support levels are 108.00, 106.70, 106.10 and 105.70; Resistance - 109.80;

- cryptocurrencies. A Glassnode study found that only 4 million bitcoins are in free float on the market. The third halving in May 2020 halved the miners' reward for the mined block from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. It further enhances the shortage of coins in the market. And as you know, it is the limited emission of bitcoin that is one of its main advantages over gold and fiat currencies.
“Suddenly, buying bitcoin is no longer insignificant or risky,” wrote Mike Novogratz, head of Galaxy Digital crypto bank. On the contrary, it has become risky not to have BTC in the portfolio when central banks continue to print money. We don't have enough time to hire sales managers to reach all the institutional clients who want to understand and participate in the market."
Even such a supporter of gold as Euro Pacific Capital president Peter Schiff has supported Novogratz. It was just recently, that this bitcoin skeptic called bitcoin the largest bubble in history and unflatteringly spoke about the mental abilities of cryptocurrency investors. And now he has admitted his mistake. “When I first heard about bitcoin, I didn't think that smart investors would be stupid enough to buy bitcoin. I was wrong," Schiff wrote.
Going back tothe head of Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz, we should note that he has dramatically changed the forecast for the BTC rate for the end of 2021 upwards. “It feels like,” says the banker, “we’ll stay for a bit between $42,000 and $60,000, and then see the next big jump to $100,000. I will not be surprised if we reach this mark by the end of this year."
An unexpected conspiracy forecast was given by an expert in the field of competitive intelligence. He believes the creation and support of the Bitcoin hype for years is no coincidence. In case the American financial elite manages to convince its creditors that having bitcoins is better than dollars, it can transfer all external debt of the US to this cryptocurrency over time. "As soon as this happens, the cryptocurrency will only have to collapse, and America's gigantic debt will actually be zeroed," the expert reflects.
Time will tell whether it is true or not. In the meantime, events in the US stock market play one of the leading roles in influencing bitcoin. Recall that about a year ago, the fall in the stock market due to the panic around the COVID-19 pandemic provoked a collapse of the cryptocurrency market.
And in conclusion, another funny crypto life hack. We have already talked about an American fortune teller who predicts bitcoin rates by observing the movement of the planets. There was also a story about another resident of the United States who placed a mining farm in the trunk of his BMW. The farm receives energy from the car's battery, to which it is connected using a DC inverter, which allows the owner to mine cryptocurrency while the car is moving.
And now a gamer and crypto enthusiast from China named Yifan Gu has become known. He managed to bypass the technical limitations for cryptocurrency mining, set in the Sony PlayStation 5, and adapted this game console for Ethereum mining, gaining a profitability of about $50 per week. Earlier, Yifan Gu adapted his MacBook Air with Apple M1 chip for mining this leading altcoin. However, at the ETH current rate, you can earn only $0.14 in one day on the MacBook Air.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
CryptoNews


- The price of bitcoin at the moment is most correlated with real estate prices, and in the future, bitcoin will become similar to low-risk instruments like bonds and will enter the recommended portfolio of investors. This was announced by the head of ARK Investment Cathie Wood on CNBC. “I think the first cryptocurrency will behave like fixed income markets,” Wood said. “We have survived a 40-year bond bull market. And we won't be surprised if this new asset class becomes part of the investment portfolio. Perhaps it will be 60% stocks, 20% bonds and 20% cryptocurrency.” Renowned bitcoin critic Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, called Wood's predictions "outrageous."

- The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sent out letters to cryptocurrency holders demanding to pay off large debts to the state. And now, according to Forbes, this agency has launched Hidden Treasure operation to search for residents who hide their income from transactions with digital assets. According to IRS legal counsel Carolyn Shank, the agency is working with private contractors to identify clear signs of violations. "We see you," Shank added menacingly.

- One of the oldest private banks in Germany, Donner & Reuschel, headquartered in Hamburg, is going to add services for the purchase and storage of crypto assets for its clients. Due to high demand, it is planned to launch these services “as soon as possible,” the bank said in a statement.
Donner & Reuschel was founded in 1798 and manages assets worth about $10.7 billion. The bank plans to "intensively engage" in asset tokenization in the future in order to keep up with changes in the financial industry. “We are observing the digital asset market and are convinced of the potential of blockchain, including in relation to traditional securities transactions,” said Marcus Vitt, spokesman for the bank's board.

- The entrepreneur and creator of the famous antivirus, John McAfee, has been charged with fraud and money laundering, and now faces up to 100 years in prison. The case will be considered by the Court of the Southern District of New York. Recall that McAfee was arrested in Spain in October 2020, and now he is awaiting extradition to the United States. Another person involved in the process will be the executive advisor of the cryptocurrency team of the entrepreneur Jimmy Gail Watson Jr., who has been recently taken into custody.
The first charge concerns the manipulative appreciation of altcoins using the Pump&Dump scheme on Twitter. McAfee posted tweets advertising certain coins, leading to an active increase in their price. When quotes peaked, members of McAfee's team sold these altcoins and took profits. Another issue concerns undisclosed fees for participating in the ICO promotion.
“McAfee and Watson made nearly $2 million by using social media to perform Pump&Dump schemes. They also used the same platform to promote tokens without disclosing information about the reward received from the ICO organizers. This brought them another $11 million,” the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

- Bitcoin is becoming an increasingly popular asset among a wide variety of categories of investors and is gradually replacing gold in their portfolios. This is stated in the February report of analysts from Bloomberg.
“The process of replacing gold in [investors'] portfolios with bitcoin is accelerating and we are seeing the risks decrease. In 2020, the cryptocurrency became attractive because of the decrease in its volatility compared to the previous year,” the authors of the report emphasize. The shrinking range of price fluctuations signals that bitcoin has actually become an alternative to traditional investment assets.
Bloomberg team is also positive about the further rate of the main cryptocurrency. After the coin broke above $50,000, it got the opportunity to test higher values. Demand for this asset is increasing, and its macroeconomic indicators are improving. According to Bloomberg analysts' forecasts, bitcoin could reach $100,000 this year. In the long term, the growth of its value will also continue, according to the authors of the study.

- According to venture capital pioneer Tim Draper, Netflix could be the next big company to invest in bitcoin. Since bitcoin can provide a hedge against the inflationary risks associated with dollar, Draper doesn't rule out cryptocurrencies as the perfect solution for someone like Netflix founder Reed Hastings.
Hastings is a great innovator with a lot of creative ideas, and since he has power in the company, he may decide to invest some of his funds in bitcoin. According to Draper, Google may follow suit, but it is more likely that companies like Google, Facebook or Apple will want to issue their own cryptocurrencies without being tied to bitcoin.

- The forecast, according to which the bitcoin rate may reach $1 million or more in the next 10 years, was announced by the CEO of the Kraken crypto exchange Jesse Powell. In a dialogue with Bloomberg reporters, he also said that bitcoin could eventually replace all major fiat currencies that are not backed by gold and other precious metals.
“Right now we are only guessing, but if you value bitcoin in dollars, then you must understand that its value tends to infinity. True "believers" will tell you that it will reach the Moon, Mars and eventually become the world's currency," said the head of Kraken. However, he agreed that there is a risk of sharp market fluctuations, and that prices could "rise or fall by 50% any day." Therefore, the term of an investment in bitcoin, according to Powell, should be at least five years.

- According to a number of futuristic experts, bitcoin will continue to grow, but due to its architecture, it will eventually burst and depreciate.
The rise in the cost of bitcoin is hardwired into its mathematics, according to Singularity University expert Evgeny Kuznetsov, and the cost of electricity required for mining is constantly growing. Already, this process consumes energy comparable to that of the Netherlands. At some point, it will require the energy of the whole world to generate just one unit. That is, there is a limitation for the growth of bitcoin: it is blocked by the amount of energy consumption. But this will not happen soon, not in a year or two, and until that moment it will be possible to make huge capital on it, the futurologist believes.


#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
February 2021 Results: NordFX Traders Name Gold and Bitcoin as Leaders Again


NordFX Brokerage company has summed up the performance of its clients' trade transactions in February. The services of social trading, PAMM and CopyTrading, as well as the profit received by the company's IB-partners have also been assessed.

The first line in the rating of the most successful traders has been taken once again by a client from Vietnam, account No. 1416XXX, who received a profit of USD 29,880 on trades, most of which were carried out in pairs with gold (XAU/USD) and bitcoin (BTC/USD). The same trader was in the lead a month ago with an income of 83.598 USD obtained on transactions with the same two trading instruments.

The second place has been taken by a client from China, account No. 1536XXX. The client earned 23,640 USD in February, and their earnings were also based on operations with gold.

But the trader who took the third step of the podium (account No. 1503XXX) used a variety of trading instruments (GBP/AUD, AUD/NZD, EUR/CAD, EUR/AUD, CAD/CHF and AUD/USD), and achieved no less impressive success. Their profit for February was USD 20,716.

According to the results of the shortest month of the year, a competition unfolded among signal providers in the CopyTrading service. Let's list the TOP-3 of February: RichieFX-EA (profit 188%, maximum drawdown 49%), GOLD RUSH Inc. (profit 129%, drawdown 51%) and VN.NO1 (profit 110%, drawdown 31%).

As for PAMM, the past month was not as successful, but if you look at the entire investment period, then, for example, the manager under the nickname WyseTrader9711 showed a profit of 61.45% with a maximum drawdown of 15.7%, and the results of the ProCapital manager were 24.9% with a drawdown of only 9.8%, which is several times higher than the income on bank deposits in USD.

Commission fees of NordFX IB-partners almost doubled in February compared to January, which indicates a serious growth in trading activity. The TOP 3 of the month is as follows:
- the largest commission, USD 17282, was credited to a partner from India, account No.1527xxx;
- next is a partner from Sri lanka, account number 1483xxx, who received 11.749 USD;
- and, finally, a partner from China, account No. 1336xxx, who received 11.233 USD as a reward, closes the top three.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.


#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/
 
Forex Forecast and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for March 15-19, 2021


First, a review of last week’s events:

- EUR/USD. Recall that the head of the Fed Jerome Powell literally brought down the American stock markets with his speech on February 4. Powell stayed indifferent to the surge in US Treasury yields, which closed at an annual high. At the same time, he hinted at the possibility of premature tightening of monetary policy.
And although the head of the Fed stressed that the economy is far from overheating, and he does not yet see the need to raise the interest rate, the market has had a hint of a possible change in monetary policy. In response, the Treasury yields rushed up with the dollar, and the stock market rolled down. The S&P500 lost over 120 points and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 300 points.
And then, everything changed on Tuesday March 09. Strong growth in technology stocks, positive statistics from the labor market, growth in household assets and a bill signed by US President Joe Biden on a new stimulus package for $1.9 trillion pushed the American stock market up. The S&P500 index not only fully recovered from losses, but also updated its historical high, reaching the mark of 3.960. As for long-term treasuries, their profitability, on the contrary, has stabilized. And this despite the fact that the volume of submitted applications exceeded the volume of the issue by 2.38 times, and foreign investors purchased about 20% of securities of the total volume of $38 billion.
The EUR/USD pair reached a height of 1.1990 on Thursday March 11 due to these factors. However, it failed to reach the 1.2000 level. The fall of the pair and the weakening of the euro was facilitated by the statement of the ECB management on the increase in the rate of buying bonds under the PEPP (Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program). But it turned out to be not convincing enough, and nothing was said about scaling up the PEPP. As a result, the fall of the pair was insignificant, and it ended the week at the level of 1.1950;

- GBP/USD. More and more experts are wondering if the pound has passed its high on February 24. Is it time to consolidate with the dollar? The British currency has shown an impressive growth of 2830 points against its American “colleague” (from 1.1410 to 1.4240) starting from the third decade of March 2020. And we have been observing the sideways movement of the GBP/USD pair along the Pivot Point of 1.3900 for the last two weeks. The upper border of the trading range is drawn quite clearly: this is the resistance at 1.4000. Two support levels can be considered as the lower one: the nearest one - 1.3850 and the next one - 1.3775.
The GBP/USD chart of the last week is very similar to the EUR/USD chart. This suggests that both the pound and the euro are not so much independent players in the market now as hostages of the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy and rates on US government bonds. Having started the five-day week at 1.3840, the pair was moving within the above range for the whole week, and set the last chord at 1.3925;

- USD/JPY. The yen has passed one milestone after another in recent weeks, and the USD/JPY pair reached the eight-month highs. Many traders are afraid to open both long and short positions in such a situation. On the one hand, the pair was already overbought, and on the other, it could still fly further upward by inertia. This is what happened in fact: it first rose to the level of 109.25, then a correction to 108.35 followed, and a new rise to the horizon of 109.00, where the pair ended the working week;

- cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin peaked at $58,340 on February 21, after which it pulled back to $43,160, shrinking by 26%. According to Material Indicators, this decline was used by whales and institutions to buy assets from small investors. For example, the number of orders for the purchase of BTC in the amount from $0.1 million to $1 million reached record values on the Binance crypto exchange. And now, twenty days later, on March 12, Bitcoin broke the $58,000 bar again. However, at the time of writing the review, It could not update the historical high, stopping at $58,240
The BTC/USD pair rose last week amid the rise in the US stock market. Although, most likely, this is only a formal reason, and not a real reason for the activation of the bulls. It was clear that they would definitely make an attempt to rise above $60,000. And the only question was when it would happen.
According to CryptoQuant, the demand for bitcoins continues to grow, and their number on exchanges has fallen to a two-year low. As Bloomberg experts point out in their February report, bitcoin is becoming an increasingly popular asset among a wide variety of investors and is gradually replacing gold from their portfolios. According to the authors of the report, the reduction in the range of price fluctuations signals that the main cryptocurrency has actually become an alternative to traditional investment assets.
The overall capitalization of the crypto market is also committed to new heights, along with bitcoin. It grew from $1444 billion to $1756 billion over the week. And now the volume of $2 trillion will become an important psychological level for it.
Interestingly, despite the weekly growth of the BTC/USD pair by 20%, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, on the contrary, fell from 77 to 70, which may indicate the general bullish mood of the market.
And another interesting observation. Bitcoin's market dominance has declined from 70.4% to 61.4% since early 2021. The indicators of altcoins from the TOP-10 have also gone down or remained at the same levels. But the total capitalization of smaller tokens has risen from 10.3% to 14.4%. It is unlikely that these coins can arouse the interest of large investors. Therefore, such statistics can only indicate that players have begun to use them more actively for short-term speculation.

continued below...
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account on our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Similar threads

Replies
0
Views
228K

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website. For the best site experience please disable your AdBlocker.

I've Disabled AdBlock    No Thanks