Replays · US payrolls (NFP) · 4 Jun 2021, 13:30 UK

A bounce that started from a dip

This report is worth looking at for the hour before it as much as the hour after. Bitcoin had fallen 2.4% in the hour before the release. Then the jobs figures came out, and within twenty minutes it was 3.7% above the release price.

Monthly change in US payrolls, thousands, first prints (ALFRED), by reference month. The May figure was published on this day.

The figures

US employers added 559,000 jobs in May. April had been revised up to 278,000 from 266,000, and unemployment fell from 6.1% to 5.8%. After March's 916,000, April's small number had been a shock, so May's recovery was a relief.

Down into the release, up out of it

1 12:30 UK: Bitcoin begins a 2.4% slide
2 13:30 UK: the jobs report
3 13:50 UK: about +3.7%, near $37,160

Bitcoin, five-minute candles from an hour before to four hours after. % from the 13:30 UK price of $35,819. Source: Bitstamp.

Bitcoin rose 0.7% on the first candle, 2.4% by fifteen minutes, and peaked twenty minutes after the release. It finished the hour +2.9%, 6.2 times a normal hour. Among the 117 jobs reports in our Bitcoin data, that ranks #4.

Every jobs report in our data, by Bitcoin's first-hour move as a multiple of a normal hour. This release is marked.

The rest of the market moved together. Ether, XRP and Chainlink all rose between 3% and 4.5% in the hour. US stocks moved less, with the Nasdaq 100 ETF up 0.9% and the S&P 500 ETF up 0.1%.

The pre-release slide matters for reading this chart. Some of the move after 13:30 UK was Bitcoin recovering ground it had lost in the previous hour, so measured from 12:30 UK the net gain by 14:30 UK was much smaller than the 3.7% peak suggests. That is one reason we always show the half hour before the release on our candle charts.

The rally also faded within the four-hour window. Bitcoin gave back about a percentage point in the second hour before recovering to +3.2% at four hours, while the Nasdaq 100 ETF kept rising steadily to +1.1%.

The rest of the week

The jump didn't hold for long. By the next day Bitcoin was only 0.4% above the release price. On 5 June, El Salvador's president announced at a Bitcoin conference in Miami that he planned to make Bitcoin legal tender, and Bitcoin finished the week +4.0%. Other coins didn't share in it: Ether was -4.2% and Chainlink -17% after the week.

Sources: release time and figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain), first-print values via ALFRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Crypto: Bitstamp 5-minute candles; SPY/QQQ: IEX. No consensus forecasts are shown because they are proprietary; comparisons are with the previous release. “× normal hour” compares the first-hour move with the median move in matched quiet hours. How we measure it.