Week of 4 March 2019: BTC and ETH rise on light volume, still far below their highs
When both assets post modest weekly gains on lighter-than-usual volume while sitting far below their 52-week highs, what does the week actually establish about direction?
BTC rose from 3,807.32 to 3,916.82 (+2.88%) and ETH from 130.60 to 135.37 (+3.65%). Both assets fell to their weekly lows early on Monday 4 March before rising, and both closed in the upper third of their ranges. Dollar volume was 0.80bn for BTC and 0.33bn for ETH, running at 0.89 and 0.76 times their prior 12-week averages respectively.
What the data shows. Both assets set their weekly lows in the same hour, 10:00 UTC on Monday 4 March: 3,670.69 for BTC and 122.60 for ETH. Both then advanced, with BTC reaching 3,971.75 on Saturday 9 March and ETH reaching 140.29 on Wednesday 6 March. The largest hourly move was also shared: +2.51% for BTC and +4.52% for ETH in the hour starting 13:00 UTC on Tuesday 5 March, which was also the best day for both (+3.81% and +8.78%). Monday was the worst day for both (-2.42% and -3.79%). The two moved closely hour by hour (correlation 0.87), and the ETH/BTC ratio changed only 0.75%, so this reads as a common move rather than one asset separating from the other.
What it does not show. Volume was light: BTC at 0.89 times and ETH at 0.76 times their prior 12-week averages. A weekly gain on lighter volume is a description of participation, not a forecast. The data does not identify who was buying, and the ETH high arriving on Wednesday while the BTC high arrived on Saturday leaves the pair's timing only loosely aligned.
What a careful desk would check. BTC closed 81.8% of the way up its weekly range and ETH 72.2%, both in the upper third, which is a firm close on the week's own terms. But BTC remained 60.7% below its 52-week high and ETH 83.87% below its own. A desk would read this week's 64th and 69th percentile returns against the 55 weeks of history recorded so far, which is a modest sample.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH's 3.65% edged BTC's 2.88% by 0.77 percentage points, but ETH's realised volatility was nearly twice BTC's (58.9% against 32.7% annualised), and its weekly range was 14.43% against 8.20%. The relative gain is small relative to that gap in variability.
What would change this reading
- If BTC trades below this week's low of 3,670.69 in a later week, the Monday low reads as a level that did not hold.
- If volume rises back above the prior 12-week average while price stalls, this week's light-volume gain looks less like the start of a trend.
- If ETH's realised volatility stays near 58.9% while its advantage over BTC disappears, the ETH tilt of this week was noise within its ordinary swings.
Terms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- close location
- where the closing price sits between the week's low and high, as a percentage
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 64th percentile means 64% of past weeks were lower