Week of 18 June 2018: Bitcoin -4.77% and Ether -8.6% on volume below the 12-week average
When two assets fall for a fourth week in five but trade on lighter volume than usual, how should the week's path and its largest hourly move be read?
BTC fell from 6,444.06 to 6,136.97 (-4.77%) and ETH from 497.15 to 454.41 (-8.60%). The weekly high came Tuesday 19 June, the low Sunday 24 June. Dollar volume ran at 0.80x (BTC) and 0.90x (ETH) the prior 12-week average, and the largest hourly move was a +7.33% rebound one hour after the low.
What the data shows. BTC opened at 6,444.06 and closed at 6,136.97; ETH opened at 497.15 and closed at 454.41. The high for both (BTC 6,841.74, ETH 548.20) arrived at 13:00 UTC on Tuesday 19 June, and the low (BTC 5,750.00, ETH 419.53) at 15:00 UTC on Sunday 24 June. The high preceded the low, giving an intra-week range of 18.99% for BTC and 30.67% for ETH. The worst day was Friday 22 June (-10.01% BTC, -12.20% ETH); the best was Monday 18 June (+4.17%, +4.18%). The largest hourly move was upward, +7.33% for BTC and +7.94% for ETH, in the hour starting 16:00 UTC on Sunday — one hour after the low. The two assets tracked each other closely (hourly correlation 0.92), but ETH fell further, so the ETH/BTC ratio dropped 4.02%. Volume was 1.49bn USD for BTC and 0.49bn for ETH, both below their prior 12-week averages.
What it does not show. Volume below average does not say whether buying was absent or selling was light; it records turnover, not intent. The largest hourly move was a bounce, so nothing here establishes that Sunday's low held. No perpetual funding figures are available for this week, so leveraged positioning cannot be described. Only 18 weeks of history exist, so the return has no percentile ranking.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility was 81.2% annualised for BTC and 100.0% for ETH. A +7.33% hourly swing inside a week that closed down 4.77% means a stop placed within Sunday's range could have been triggered by the rebound rather than by the decline. BTC closed 47.65% below its 52-week high and ETH 60.80% below, so this is a down week inside a longer decline, and the prior four weeks already held three losses.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH's weekly return was 3.83 percentage points worse than BTC's, and it closed in the lower third of its weekly range (27.1%) while BTC closed in the middle third (35.4%). The close points differ even though the hourly correlation is 0.92.
What would change this reading
- If BTC trades below the week's low of 5,750.00 in a later week, the Sunday 15:00 UTC low reads as a pause rather than a floor.
- If volume rises above the prior 12-week average in later weeks while price holds, this week's light-volume decline reads as absent demand rather than active selling.
- If ETH/BTC keeps falling beyond this week's -4.02%, the decline has become a relative move, which changes which hedge carries the exposure.
- If a later week does not exceed the Sunday hour's +7.33% BTC move, that hour stands as an outlier rather than the start of a reversal.
Terms
- realised volatility (annualised)
- the size of the price swings that actually occurred, scaled to a yearly percentage
- ETH/BTC ratio
- the price of one Ether expressed in Bitcoin; a fall means Ether weakened relative to Bitcoin
- close location
- where the week's closing price sits between the week's low and high, in thirds