Week of 3 June 2019: after four rising weeks, Bitcoin falls 12.58% and Ether 14.09%
After four straight rising weeks, does a single down week with the close in the lower third of the range mark a reversal, and what would later weeks need to show to settle that?
BTC fell from 8,726.0 to 7,628.13 (-12.58%) and ETH from 268.87 to 230.98 (-14.09%), the first down week after four rising ones. Both assets peaked early on Monday 3 June, and their largest hourly moves came the same night. The week's return ranked at the 13th percentile for BTC across 68 weeks of history.
What the data shows. BTC opened at 8,726.0 and closed at 7,628.13, a fall of 12.58%. ETH fell from 268.87 to 230.98, or 14.09%. Both peaked within hours of the open: BTC's high of 8,800.95 came at 02:00 UTC on Monday 3 June, ETH's high of 270.0 at 03:00 UTC the same morning. The largest hourly moves of the week arrived together, in the hour starting 23:00 UTC on Monday (-4.19% for BTC, -3.07% for ETH). BTC's low of 7,444.58 came at 18:00 UTC on Thursday 6 June; ETH's low of 226.56 came at 22:00 UTC on Sunday 9 June. Both closes sat in the lower third of the week's range, 13.5% and 10.2% of the way up from the low. BTC dollar volume was 1.43 times its prior twelve-week average; ETH's was 1.02 times.
What it does not show. The four weeks before were all positive for both assets (BTC 20.68%, 16.94%, 5.73% and 1.32%), so the data shows the turn but not its cause. Nothing here identifies who was selling or whether any selling was forced. The two assets printed their lows on different days, Thursday for BTC and Sunday for ETH; nothing shows which low matters more.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, how much the price actually swung scaled to a yearly figure, reached 73.1% for BTC and 74.3% for ETH. The weekly return ranked at the 13th percentile for BTC and the 16th for ETH among 68 weeks of history, so this was an unusually weak week after a strong stretch. A desk would test whether stops placed during the four rising weeks would have survived the week's range of 18.22% for BTC and 19.17% for ETH, and would read BTC's best day, Friday 7 June at 2.48%, as a rebound rather than a turn.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH underperformed BTC by 1.51 percentage points and the ETH/BTC ratio fell 1.73%. The two moved closely together, with hourly correlation of 0.90. At the week's close ETH stood 61.92% below its 52-week high against 14.69% for BTC.
What would change this reading
- If a later week trades below this week's BTC low of 7,444.58, the fall reads as the start of a deeper move rather than a pause.
- If BTC recovers above this week's open of 8,726.0 while volume falls back towards its prior twelve-week average, the week reads as a shakeout after four rising weeks.
- If ETH keeps falling faster than BTC while hourly correlation stays at 0.9 or above, the drop of 1.73% in the ETH/BTC ratio would widen.
Terms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 13th percentile means 13% of past weeks were lower
- hourly correlation
- how closely two prices moved together hour by hour, from -1 to 1