Replays · US CPI · 10 Jun 2022, 13:30 UK
Hopes of a peak, gone in one candle
In spring 2022 markets were looking for signs that inflation had peaked. The May report ended that idea. Prices rose 1.0% in a month and 8.6% in a year, and crypto fell on the first candle and never recovered within the window.
- Release
- Friday 10 June 2022, 13:30 UK
- Headline CPI
- +1.0% m/m, 8.6% y/y (April: 8.3%)
- Core CPI
- +0.6% m/m, 6.0% y/y
- Context
- Highest annual rate since December 1981 (BLS)
- Bitcoin at release
- $30,067
No recovery
Bitcoin dropped 1.7% on the first 5-minute candle and spent the rest of the afternoon below that level. It was -2.23% after an hour, ranked #12 of 117 CPI releases in our data and 4.8 times a normal hour, and -3.77% at four hours. It never traded above its release price in the four-hour window. The low, about 4% down, came at 17:25 UK.
Many hot prints get a bounce after the first hour. This one had none, which is why the four-hour figure is worse than the one-hour figure for every coin in the table below.
Smaller coins moved most
By the size of the move compared with normal, Cardano and Chainlink were the outliers. Cardano fell 5.5% in the first hour, 9.9 times its normal hour, and Chainlink fell 6.2%. Ether was -6.1% at four hours.
| Market | 5m | 1h | 4h | 1w | × normal hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chainlink | −3.65% | −6.20% | −7.86% | −29.12% | 8.7× |
| Cardano | −2.45% | −5.46% | −6.57% | −20.56% | 9.9× |
| Litecoin | −3.07% | −3.52% | −5.66% | −21.59% | 5.0× |
| Ethereum | −2.55% | −3.12% | −6.12% | −38.68% | 5.3× |
| XRP | −2.28% | −2.77% | −5.53% | −18.65% | 3.9× |
| Bitcoin | −1.76% | −2.23% | −3.77% | −30.52% | 4.8× |
Change from the 13:30 UK release, sorted by the first hour.
Stocks and sterling sold off too. The Nasdaq 100 ETF was -1.5% after an hour, and the pound was -1.45% against the dollar at the London 4pm fix.
The speed matters here. Bitcoin was already -1.8% after five minutes, so almost all of the first-hour move was in place before US stocks opened at 14:30 UK. The four-hour figure then added another leg down, which is unusual: in most CPI replays in our data the first hour is the biggest part of the move.
The following week
The one-week column is dominated by events after the release. On Sunday 12 June the crypto lender Celsius paused withdrawals, citing extreme market conditions, and the Fed raised rates by three-quarters of a point the following Wednesday. Bitcoin was -30.5% a week after the CPI release, and Ether -38.7%. The inflation report set the direction, but most of that week's losses came from these later events.
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.