Recaps · US CPI · 13 Nov 2024, 13:30 UK

No surprise, new record

A week after the US presidential election, Bitcoin was already in a strong rally. The October inflation report matched forecasts exactly. Bitcoin did not need a surprise: it kept climbing through the afternoon and set a new record above $93,000.

Release: Wednesday 13 November 2024, 13:30 UK
Headline CPI: +0.2% m/m, 2.6% y/y (September: 2.4%)
Core CPI: +0.3% m/m, 3.3% y/y
Forecast: In line on all four numbers (Kitco)
Bitcoin at release: $88,430

The report

Prices rose 0.2% for the fourth month in a row, Reuters wrote, in line with economists' expectations. Annual inflation edged up from 2.4% to 2.6%, and core inflation held at 3.3%. Reuters said two-year Treasury yields fell after the data, and traders kept expecting another Fed cut in December.

The bigger background was the election. Reuters reported that Bitcoin had risen 32% since 5 November on expectations that Donald Trump's administration would be friendly to crypto.

A slow build to a record

1 14:30 UK: US stocks open
2 16:15 UK: high, about +5.7%

Bitcoin, 5-minute candles, % from the 13:30 UK price. Source: Bitstamp.

The first five minutes were quiet, +0.35%. Bitcoin was +1.73% after an hour, #21 of 117 CPI releases at 3.2 times a normal hour, then the climb sped up. It reached about 5.7% up at 16:15 UK, roughly $93,500. CNBC put the intraday record at $93,469 and Kitco at $93,541. Bitcoin was +4.46% at 17:30 UK and +2.89% a day later.

1 16:15 UK: Bitcoin's high

Bitcoin and the S&P 500 ETF over the four hours after the release, % from the 13:30 UK price. The ETF trades from 14:30 UK.

Why a non-event moved so much

CPI days in late 2024 were usually quiet for Bitcoin. In September, October and December 2024 its first hour after CPI was within 0.4% of the release price. This one was larger because the market was already trending. An in-line report removed a risk, and buyers who were waiting for it went ahead. A lesson for traders: on a matched forecast, the direction of the move tends to come from the trend that was already in place, not from the data.

The stock market stayed flat: the S&P 500 ETF was +0.22% at four hours. The biggest gains were in smaller coins over the following week. XRP rose 65% and Cardano 53%, against Bitcoin's +6.7%. Cardano was also the biggest first-hour mover, +5.8% at 9.0 times its normal hour.

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.