According to BlockBeats, the market continues to be sluggish, with the BTC ETF experiencing a net outflow of $264 million last week. Despite the softening employment data recently released, the financial situation remains relaxed. The stock market was not affected by the poor consumer confidence and inflation expectation data. Consumer confidence dropped from 77.2 last month to 67.4, while the one-year inflation expectation jumped from 3.2% to 3.5%.
Overall, the macroeconomic surprise index has fallen to its lowest level in 1.5 years, and Citigroup's hard data indicator saw its largest single-day drop in a year last week. Although it is still too early to assert a 'hard landing', with consumer savings declining, PMI continuing to be sluggish, high interest rates dragging down credit demand, and the finally slowing job market, American consumers are indeed entering a weak phase.
The market focus will be on this Wednesday's CPI data, which could be a key driver of medium-term price trends. Although the market does hope for lower inflation data to guide the narrative of inflation slowdown back, the recent market-led CPI fixing has been quite stable, with traders expecting a year-on-year increase of about 3.4% in May CPI, which may further slow down to around 3.1% in December. The short-term financial situation's relaxation will offset the weakness in consumer credit demand, and the trend of oil prices may drive the inflation trend and expectations before the end of the year.
The trend of cryptocurrency prices is disappointing. During the New York trading session last Friday, BTC fell sharply from 63.5k to 60.5k, with a slight outflow of 85 million from the ETF. The major global CEX reported a decline in spot trading volume in April, the first decline in about five months. As the spot price has been consolidating for most of the past 1-2 months, the price trend seems heavy, and existing investors naturally still lean towards the bulls. In addition, as trend traders sell bullish options to earn extra income, long-term participants have begun to use volatility to generate income in the current period of low sentiment, with implied volatility falling sharply.
