Gold, Stocks, and Bitcoin: Weekly Overview — February 24

This week’s price movements for Bitcoin (BTC), gold, and our stock pick, the S&P 500.

BTC

After a promising start to February, Bitcoin has been on a downward trend for two weeks. On February 10, Bitcoin was trading for around $45,000. By February 12 it had fallen to $42,000, where it stayed until February 15 when it bumped up to $44,000. By February 17 BTC started tumbling again, hitting support at $40,000 the next day. However, by February 20 it had failed and BTC fell to $38,000 then $37,000 by February. Despite pushing back up to $39,000 BTC has fallen in the past day and is currently trading just above $36,000.

Total cryptocurrency market capitalization plummeted more than 9% over the past 24 hours as Russia commenced military action in Ukraine. Roughly $200 billion in digital assets were liquidated during the initial 12 hours following the launch of the invasion, resulting in a massive market slump which dropped total market capitalization to a seven-month low. At the time of press, the total market cap was around $1.648 trillion according to CoinGecko, its lowest level since early August 2021. 

GOLD

Aside from faring well in February, gold also saw a boost as a safe haven asset during the market turmoil caused by the invasion. On February 10, the price of gold was $1,830, which rose to $1,860 the next day. By February 15 it had risen to $1,880 before tumbling a bit to $1,850. From there it started rising again, hitting resistance at $1,900. Persisting at this level until the past day, gold spiked up past $1,970 before retracing to $1,925 where it is currently trading.  

Gold was propelled to a near 18-month high as investors switched to safe-haven assets in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea on Thursday, confirming the worst fears of the West with the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War Two. “There is safe-haven demand for gold… this crisis is very inflationary because it’s adding upward pressure on commodities prices,” said Saxo Bank analyst Ole Hansen.

SP

Despite faring poorly overall in February, the S&P 500’s recent drop reflected US markets’ overall reaction to the conflict in Eastern Europe. SP started out February trading at $4,525, rising as high as $4,595 the next day. SP gapped down from there, trading between $4,525 and $4,450 until February 9. From there it gapped back up to $4,575, until beginning to tumble again the next day, reaching below $4,400 by February 14. The next day SP gapped up again to $4,450, but started descending again by February 17. It is currently trading just below $4,200.

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