“Bitcoin ETF outflows rock valuations, Election season renews focus on industrial planning in the UK and digital assets in the US, TSMC’s bullish run with AI boom.”
TradFi & Global Market News
Global Market: S&P 500 & NASDAQ
The US markets have demonstrated a robust performance in the past weeks, surging to seven consecutive highs within eight weeks at closing. On Tuesday, the S&P500 rose 1.43% from the past week, while NASDAQ noticed a 0.77% rise since the previous closing. The CPI numbers released early last week were cooler than estimates, causing a sustained surge in technology stocks. With interest rate cuts expected in the coming two quarters, investors are looking for stock market leadership within the technology sector to be a consistent driver of economic performance, especially as weaker retail sales continue to plague US markets.
While the status quo looks bullish for the markets, that could all change in this election season, when policy shocks may sway current inflation projections. All eyes have been on an increasingly popular Trump as he sets to impose higher tariffs on non-critical goods to reduce the trade deficit but at the expense of the US and broader global GDP.
Global Market: FTSE100
The FTSE100 closed 0.2% higher on Wednesday despite slower-than-expected service sector inflation offset by a 7-week increase in industrial copper prices. After a yearlong battle with volatility, UK markets finally experienced some spillover effects from calming global macroeconomic trends, such as in the US, which have also brought UK inflation rates down to the 2% inflation target. As of Thursday, the central bank’s decision is to hold interest rates at 5.25% in the face of a looming election, but most analysts are confident that a cut will be expected sometime after the summer or even as early as the next August meeting.
UK Elections
With election season in full force, investors across the UK have taken time to take stock of the state of the economy to date, and expectations are moving forward as the Labour Party takes the prime position in the polls. The NIESR report on the General Election reflects a push for rebuilding. With a high debt, the UK has had a consistent fiscal constraint that must be unlocked even to begin an economic growth restart. Besides gradual tax increases, integrating business expenditure targets is vital to support investment targets. In their proposed fiscal framework revamp, the NIESR pushes for supply-side reforms via public investments towards standard-of-living improvement projects like NHS upgrades or housing. This seems aligned with Labour’s plans for a new industrial strategy plan supported by an Industrial Strategy Council as a guiding council instead of Conservatives’ existing advanced manufacturing plan.
Digital Strategy News: Apple
Apple Intelligence is the latest cornerstone of its innovation strategy, which seeks to integrate AI into existing service offers like smart spellcheck, image finder within the Photos app, and even transcription. The key modality of their strategy is multimodal. Their latest products are expected to handle on-device processes for AI for simple AI jobs while also being connected to Apple server processors, as opposed to the common cloud processing methodology, to handle complex computations. These methods are built on Apple’s longstanding branding push to be the highest standards in privacy for users as existing cloud processing methods carry storage privacy concerns for the more oblivious users and enable offline processing. However, for tasks that require a wider throve of information, external partnerships like integrating ChatGPT into Siri are also part of the strategy and the accompanying Ferret-UI, which seeks to improve user interaction on mobile user interfaces through AI.
DeFi & Digital Assets News
Cryptocurrency Market: Bitcoin & Ethereum
The cryptocurrency market has been bearish the past week as Bitcoin fell below 65000, but it’s not all bad news. There has been a sudden surge on Thursday, indicating a potential shift in the market. Although transfer activity has reached an all-time high in 2024, the New Addresses metric indicates that this is despite low adoption, which could explain the failure to sustain a continuous bullish push as of the first quarter. In the past fortnight, Bitcoin whales have been the driving force behind cryptocurrency flows, selling over $1.2billion worth of coins per the decreasing unspent output from Bitcoin transaction metric. This trend reflects an increasing trend of miner seeking greater returns from their computing assets towards AI demands rather than cryptocurrency mining, especially after decreased returns from the halving event.
Ethereum has been performing much better as its valuation remained constant at around 3700 during the same period. CryptoQuant reports a higher market value to real value ratio for Ethereum than Bitcoin, indicating a heating up market for the former, likely due to the pending spot ETFs and various bull projects. Analysts predict a valuation as high as 4000 amidst reduced inflation and expected interest rate cuts.
Election News: US Election
More curiously, this election season has seen both top candidates, Biden and Trump, flip their stances on digital assets as they compete for crypto-enthusiast votes. Trump has been significantly more outspoken in his newfound love for digital assets. From promoting his own NFTs to accepting crypto-donations, the Republican is doing everything in his power to be a symbol against Biden’s “war on crypto” with his veto against a crypto-friendly bill.
Voters should not be too hasty to label Biden unfriendly and should carefully consider the main points. Biden mainly looks into onshore crypto-innovations like CBDCs and responsibility concerns surrounding digital assets. The veto may have been more political than technical, as he does not wish to oppose the appointed SEC chairman publicly. While there is some debate about the threat CBDCs pose to traditional cryptocurrencies, the stance is nevertheless in the right direction.
At a glance, the sincerity of each candidate to further cryptocurrency remains dubious as it seems like a tool to reach younger voters however, Pantera Capital backs the sincerity of Biden’s sentiment changes. Over the next few months, it will be crucial to see how industry leaders’ sentiments continue to shape election votes especially as digital asset concerns continue to be election topics worldwide.
In Other News…
Short Updates:
TSMC – Amidst the hype surrounding Nvidia stock performance, TSMC proves its worth on the global stage. They boast 60% of all global chip manufacturing contracts. As cash-rich tech giants looking for their own in-house chips drive up demand for manufacturers, decreased foreign investor anxiety around TSMC also reflects an opportunity for Taiwanese manufacturers to raise premiums.
Opportunity Spotlight
About Moonraker Search
We are a specialised digital asset trading & technology talent acquisition advisory firm.
We provide astute strategic guidance in human capital, delivering rare talent required by innovative organisations looking to shift paradigms. We partner with incredibly selective and dynamic clients, often pushing the boundaries of what’s technically possible. Having built teams from the ground up with recognised brands in traditional and digital asset markets, we are well-positioned to deliver the full spectrum of talent needed for high performance across Technology, Research, Data and Trading. We offer a range of services for our clients, including:
Talent Acquisition
- Embedded
- Retained
- Contingent
Market Advisory
- Internal talent platform & process optimisation
- Salary benchmarking
- Competitor analysis
Moonraker Search does not cover other industries or domains and takes special care to ensure we are embedded into our market as a specialist advisor. We cover algorithmic trading & technology at the mid to senior level, from Software Engineers to Global Heads of Trading or CTOs. We do not cover graduate or junior hiring.
Please reach out if you’d like to discuss how we can partner with you confidentially.
info@moonraker.io
https://www.moonraker.io/contact/
Follow us, or if we’ve interacted in the past, review us.
#MoonrakerHQ
“Astra inclinant, sed non obligant”
Get notified about new vacancies and articles
