Week of 27 April 2020: Bitcoin gains 15.61%, then reverses off Thursday's high
When a market posts a fifth consecutive rising week and then turns down within hours of its high, what can that week tell about momentum, and what cannot it say about the weeks ahead?
BTC rose from 7,693.10 to 8,894.16 (+15.61%) and ETH from 197.39 to 209.86 (+6.32%). Both peaked at 06:00 UTC on Thursday 30 April; the largest hourly move of the week came three hours later at -5.26% for BTC. BTC's return ranked at the 90th percentile of 115 prior weeks.
What the data shows. BTC opened the week at 7,693.10, near but above its low of 7,606.00 set on Monday 27 April, and rose to a high of 9,460.00 at 06:00 UTC on Thursday 30 April. The bulk of the gain came on Wednesday 29 April (+13.44% for BTC, +9.74% for ETH). Three hours after the Thursday high, the largest hourly move of the week was -5.26% for BTC and -4.74% for ETH, and Thursday was the worst day (-1.81% and -4.33%). The close sat at 69.5% of the week's range for BTC and 54.1% for ETH, so both finished well below the high. The four weeks before were positive for BTC (15.17%, 1.93%, 3.14%, 8.03%), making this a fifth consecutive rising week. Dollar volume ran 1.44 times the prior twelve-week average for BTC and 1.13 times for ETH.
What it does not show. The candles cannot explain why the market turned in that Thursday hour or who was on each side of it. A 90th-percentile return describes rarity, not direction after the fact. Nothing here identifies whether the retreat from 9,460.00 was profit-taking, forced exits, or a pause inside a longer advance.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility (the size of the actual swings, scaled to a yearly figure) was 84.0% for BTC and 82.4% for ETH, and funding — the periodic payment between long and short holders of perpetual futures — averaged 0.0161% per eight hours for BTC, peaking at 0.0975%. A positive rate means longs were paying shorts, a running cost for a leveraged long. A desk would ask whether its stops would have filled in the -5.26% hour and whether funding is counted in expected returns.
Ether against Bitcoin. The two assets moved closely (hourly correlation 0.89), but BTC gained 9.29 percentage points more than ETH, and the ETH/BTC ratio fell 8.04%. The advance was broad, but led by BTC rather than shared equally.
What would change this reading
- If BTC trades below this week's low of 7,606.00 in a later week, the Thursday reversal reads as the start of a turn rather than a pause.
- If a sixth consecutive week closes positive, the streak extends and the 90th-percentile return becomes part of a longer run rather than an outlier.
- If funding stays positive while price stalls near the week's high, longs keep paying to hold a position that is no longer rising.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio keeps falling after -8.04%, the lag is persistent rather than a one-week gap.
Terms
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 90th percentile means 90% of the 115 prior weeks were smaller
- close location
- where the closing price sits between the week's low and high, as a percentage; 69.5% means it finished in the upper third
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over the period, expressed as a yearly percentage