Gold, Stocks, and Bitcoin: Weekly Overview — December 17

In this article, BeInCrypto takes a look at price movements for Bitcoin (BTC), gold, and our stock pick Robinhood.

BTC

Bitcoin (BTC) continued trending downward this week. Although BTC traded around $52,000 on Dec 7, it dropped below $49,000 the next day, before recovering then falling even further to $47,500, where it found support until December 11. From there, BTC climbed back up, breaching the $50,000 mark again on Dec 12.

At this point selling pressure returned, dropping BTC below $47,000. By Dec 15, BTC was back around $49,300 and is currently trading at $47,800.

BTC prices jumped in the past day following an announcement from the Federal Reserve indicating a further expedited withdrawal of the stimulus in addition to faster interest rate hikes next year. “The market went down before the Fed announcement, so it’s probably correcting now,” said Rutgers Business School professor Merav Ozair. “Inflation is coming for sure, and we see it.”

GOLD

Similar to the week before, gold is trading roughly where it was a week prior. On Dec 8, the price of gold was $1,792, but tumbled down the next two days, reaching $1,770 by Dec 10. Then around midday gold jumped up to $1,784, and proceeded to climb nicely, reaching $1,790 by Dec 13.

From there it pivoted, inching down before dropping below $1,770 on Dec 14. The next day saw it trade down further, reaching as low as $1,752, before rebounding and shooting back up, reaching $1,790 by Dec 16 where it is now trading.

Gold saw a bump due to a fall in the U.S. dollar, following news from the Fed about its decision to phase out its pandemic-related bond purchases in the coming year. In coping with surging inflation, the central bank also indicated there would be three interest rate hikes throughout 2022, citing robust employment figures. “The main factor today is the performance of the U.S. dollar,” said ActivTrades senior analyst Ricardo Evangelista. “With the Fed meeting out of the way, the real impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant on economic activity is the big question mark for gold,” Evangelista added.

HOOD

Meanwhile, Robinhood shares seemed to have dropped with the temperature these past two months. At the beginning of November, HOOD was trading around $34.50. By Nov 3, it had bumped up to $37, before peaking at $38 on Nov 8. HOOD dropped there however to $33 by December 10, then continued to tumble, reaching $26 by Nov 23. Despite holding steadying over the next week, HOOD continued to fall, reaching below $21 by Dec 6. Although a mild recovery saw it reach $23.50, it proceeded to fall again and is currently trading just below $20. 

This past week, it was revealed that Robinhood Markets is developing a feature that will enable users to gift cryptocurrencies to one another. These digital gift cards can include a message up to 180 characters long and can be retracted before they are accepted by the original intended party. Meanwhile, in order to meet increasingly augmenting compliance standards, Robinhood recently partnered with blockchain data platform Chainalysis. The partnership anticipates the launch of Robinhood’s crypto wallets, for which over 1.6 million people have now signed the waitlist.