Bitcoin Blasts to New All-Time High Price Above $109,000

Cryptocurrency

Summary:

Bitcoin hit a new all-time high above $109,000, driven by ETF inflows, political shifts, and rising institutional demand, as investors view it more as a macro hedge than a speculative asset.

Bitcoin soared to a new record price above $109,000 on Wednesday morning, pushed by tailwinds that have sent cryptocurrencies and other risk-on assets higher over the past two months.

The largest crypto by market capitalization was recently trading at $109,378 at crypto exchange Coinbase, up 4.5% over the past 24 hours. According to Coinbase, BTC topped out at $109,500 before cooling. Bitcoin is now up nearly 25% over the last month.

"Bitcoin is pushing toward new highs with strong tailwinds behind it—from steady ETF inflows to a broader shift in political tone," Joe DiPasquale, CEO of crypto asset manager BitBull Capital, wrote to Decrypt ahead of the milestone. "We're seeing growing institutional interest and renewed risk appetite across the board."

He added optimistically: "This doesn’t feel like a short-term squeeze—it’s a more sustained bid that reflects a structural shift in how investors are viewing Bitcoin. It’s moving from a speculative trade to a strategic allocation, increasingly seen as a macro asset with long-term relevance, not just a bet on tech or hype cycles."

The latest gains come as investors buoyed by U.S. President Donald Trump's recent retreat from his global trade war and encouraging inflation reports earlier this month have plowed back into risk-on assets. Bitcoin has also benefited as investors have viewed it more as a hedge against macroeconomic uncertainties that have threatened to undermine the value of the U.S. dollar.

Bitcoin roared to its previous record of $108,786 (according to CoinGecko) in early April amid market optimism that newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump's would fulfill his promises to support the industry. But it plunged below $75,000 as investors grew skittish about his global trade war and other economic policies that many analysts believed would raise prices and slow the global economy.

The trend began to reverse shortly after encouraging readings on inflation and Trump's partial retreats from tariffs on its most important trading partners. Bitcoin and other coins' gains have accelerated over the past month, along with major equity indexes.

Ethereum and Solana are showing similar gains to Bitcoin on the day, both up around 4%, while Dogecoin is outpacing Bitcoin with a 6% bump and Cardano is up 5% as well.

Source :decrypt

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Warren Takunda

Economic

Wall Street's main indexes slipped and government bond yields rose on Wednesday, as investors closely watched a pivotal debate over U.S. President Donald Trump's tax-cut bill that has fanned concerns about the country's growing debt.

The gate-keeping House Rules Committee scheduled an unusual 1 a.m. ET hearing that is expected to run well into daylight hours, as Republicans try to overcome internal divisions about cuts to the Medicaid health program and tax breaks in high-cost coastal states.

Nonpartisan analysts say the proposed plan could add $3 trillion to $5 trillion to the federal government's $36.2 trillion in debt.

"(We're seeing) the American exceptionalism narrative unwind, so you have a natural process of something weakening after years of concentration," said David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation.

"We're kind of pouring gasoline on the fire with tariffs and all of this budgetary uncertainty."

At 09:34 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 352.28 points, or 0.83%, to 42,324.96, the S&P 500 lost 31.84 points, or 0.54%, to 5,908.62 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 97.35 points, or 0.51%, to 19,045.36.

All 11 S&P sub-sectors traded lower, with information technology and consumer discretionary amongst the worst hit.

U.S. bonds have been under pressure since the start of the week, when Moody's downgraded the country's sovereign credit rating. On Wednesday, yields on the 30-year note were back up to 5.01% and the benchmark 10-year yield climbed 5.2 basis points to 4.53%.

Highly valued technology stocks weakened as rising rates tend to discount the present value of future profits.

Amazon, down 1.5%, led losses among top megacap and growth stocks.

UnitedHealth Group dropped 5.1% as a Guardian report said the healthcare conglomerate secretly paid nursing homes thousands in bonuses to help reduce hospital transfers for ailing residents. HSBC also downgraded the stock to "reduce" from "hold".

On the earnings front, retailer Target fell 6.7% after slashing its annual forecast due to a pullback in discretionary spending.

Wolfspeed tumbled 66.5% following a report that the semiconductor supplier was preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks.

U.S. stocks closed lower on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 snapping a six-day winning streak while the Dow logged its first decline in four sessions.

Despite the losses, they have had a solid month so far. The S&P 500 has climbed more than 17% higher from its April lows, when Trump's reciprocal tariffs roiled global markets.

A pause in the tariffs, a temporary U.S.-China trade truce and tame inflation data have pushed equities higher, although the S&P 500 is still about 3% off its record highs.

Brokerage Morgan Stanley upgraded its stance on U.S. equities to "overweight", saying the global economy was still expanding, albeit slowly, amid policy uncertainty.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 3.93-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 2.98-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted two new 52-week highs and no new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 16 new highs and 17 new lows.

Source: Reuters

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Damon

Economic

Commodity

Oil prices are modestly higher ahead of this morning's official energy inventory and supply data, but have come dramatically back off the overnight spike highs driven by CNN headlines suggesting Israel is ready to strike Iranian nuclear enriuchment sites.

“Either the impact on the oil market in case of an attack is assumed to be low, or the probability for an attack is assumed to be low,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB AB.

Wednesday’s gain “is not much when we are talking bombs in the Middle East major oil producing region.”

Overnight also saw API report another sizable crude inventory build, while products drewdown (again)...

API

Crude +2.5mm
Cushing -443k
Gasoline -3.24mm
Distillates -1.4mm

DOE

Crude +1.33mm
Cushing -457k
Gasoline +816k - biggest build since January
Distillates +579k

A smaller than expected crude build was offset by an unexpected build in Gasoline stocks according to the official DOE data...

Source: Bloomberg

Including a 843k barrel addition to SPR, total US crude stocks rose for the second week in a row...

Source: Bloomberg

US Crude production was up very modestly last week - hovering just below record highs - while the rig count continues to reject Trump's 'Drill, baby, drill' narrative...

Source: Bloomberg

Geopolitical concerns have for now overshadowed expectations of looser balances heading into the second half of the year, as OPEC and its allies bring back barrels to the market.

Source: Bloomberg

US shale oil output hasn’t peaked and can still expand, but not if prices are near $50 a barrel, ConocoPhillips’ chief executive officer said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Trump will not be best pleased if geopolitical tensions raise the price of oil and wreck his inflation-busting drill-baby-drill hopes of declining pump prices for the average American.

Source: Zero Hedge

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Michelle

Economic

Forex

Uncertainty about inflation, the economy, and trade policy continues to blur the macro outlook, which in turn supports expectations that the Federal Reserve will leave interest rates unchanged at the next several policy meetings.

Fed funds futures are pricing in a near-certain probability that the central bank will let its current 4.25%-4.50% target rate stand at the upcoming June 18 FOMC meeting. The bets are skewed in favor of standing pat at the July meeting too. The guesswork tilts to predicting a cut in September, although the implied probability is a moderate 65% at the moment.

Meanwhile, the US Treasury market seems to be anticipating an earlier rate cut. The policy-sensitive 2-year yield continues to trade well below the current Fed funds rate, which suggests that the crowd expects policy easing sooner rather than later.

The one aspect that’s probably a consensus view is that elevated uncertainty weights on projections for the macro trend in the near term. St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank president Alberto Musalem on Monday highlighted the ambiguity, which is keeping the central bank in a wait-and-see mode:

“To the extent that the economy requires capital expenditure to continue to occur, that it requires hiring to continue to occur, and if all those decisions have been somewhat paused because of the uncertainty, it would affect the economic outlook I would expect. I don’t want to give a precise number estimate, but I would say it tends to be a pretty meaningful impact.”

A complicating factor is the federal government’s growing pile of debate. The bond market is increasingly focused on the US fiscal deficit, along with the possibility that the red ink could increase if Congress passes the budget legislation currently under review in the House.

“We have expected a narrative shift could take place from positive tariff news to negative budget/fiscal issues, which can see another round of ‘sell the US’: higher back-end yields [or long-term interest rates], lower risk assets, and lower US dollar,” Citi analyst Daniel Tobon wrote in a note to clients on Monday.

Fiscal risk came into sharper focus after Moody’s downgraded the US credit rating on Friday. The stakes, it seems, are rising for Congress to address the deficit. At the moment, however, the political will to reign in spending appears weak. As the Financial Times reports:“The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the legislation would increase the public debt by at least $3.3 trillion through to the end of 2034. It would also increase the debt-to-GDP ratio from 100% today to a record 125%, the group said. That would exceed the rise to 117 per cent projected over that period under current law. Meanwhile, annual deficits would rise to 6.9% of GDP from about 6.4% in 2024.”

The House has yet to finalize a bill, but recent drafts that have been made public point to higher deficits in the years ahead – a trend that’s prompted criticism from various corners.

“It’s time for policymakers to hit pause, go back to the drawing board and put forward a plan that actually takes steps toward putting our nation on a sustainable fiscal trajectory,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a public policy think tank. “Our federal interest payments are skyrocketing, already surpassing what we spend annually on defense or Medicare.”

The Trump administration counters that the bill under consideration in the House “does not add to the deficit,” according to White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt in a press conference on Monday. “In fact, according to the Council of Economic Advisers, there’s $1.6 trillion worth of savings in this bill — that’s the largest saving for any legislation that has ever passed Capitol Hill in our nation’s history.”

The final arbiter will likely be the bond market. In particular, watch the 10-year Treasury yield, which can be used as a proxy for sentiment on fiscal risk. At the moment, the benchmark rate is 4.49%, moderately below the January high of roughly 4.80%. To the extent this key rate moves closer to 5%, it’s reasonable to assume that the market is losing faith in the US government’s ability to control its spendthrift ways.

Source: Investing

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Adam

Commodity

Natural Gas Futures Find Support as Traders Weigh Weather, Demand, and Technical Signals

Daily Natural Gas

U.S. natural gas futures are holding slightly higher on Wednesday, consolidating after Tuesday’s rally that snapped a four-session losing streak. Traders are closely watching price action near the $3.438 pivot, with bullish momentum eyeing resistance in the $3.700–$3.733 range. Price direction is increasingly tied to weather forecasts and signals from both the physical and technical markets.

Can Weather-Driven Demand Sustain the Rebound?

Forecasts continue to cap near-term enthusiasm. NatGasWeather expects below-normal temperatures for most of the Midwest and East through May 27, keeping national demand on the lighter side. Daytime highs are pegged in the 50s–70s, with some pockets even cooler. Meanwhile, hot and dry conditions across the western and southern U.S. are expected to hold through early June, potentially pushing national demand higher if the pattern persists.

While a true heat-driven demand surge remains speculative, the market responded to forecasts hinting at stronger conditions by June 2–4. The promise of higher power burn from air conditioning demand offers a bullish case, but the timing is still distant and subject to revision.

What Role Are Cash Prices and Export Flows Playing?

Support from the physical market helped fuel Tuesday’s gains. Waha cash prices flipped into positive territory, a key signal of improving regional fundamentals. Export flows remain a pillar of support as U.S. shipments to Mexico hit record levels, reflecting robust cross-border demand. However, LNG exports were slightly lower week-over-week at 15.0 Bcf/day, tempering some of the bullish sentiment.

Dry gas production remains elevated at 106.1 Bcf/day, up 5.1% year-over-year. Demand, by contrast, is lagging—Tuesday’s Lower 48 consumption came in at 67.5 Bcf/day, down 2% from a year ago. These figures reinforce the underlying supply-heavy backdrop, even as short-term bullish momentum builds.

Are Inventories and Electricity Demand Signaling Caution?

Last Thursday’s EIA storage report showed an injection of 110 Bcf, matching expectations but well above the five-year average of 83 Bcf. Storage is now 2.6% above the five-year average, despite being 14.6% below last year’s level. Meanwhile, electricity output fell 2.8% year-over-year in the week ending May 10, a bearish signal for natural gas demand from utilities.

In Europe, gas storage stood at 45% full as of May 18, below the five-year norm of 55%, lending modest support to global gas prices that could spill over into U.S. benchmarks.

Market Forecast: Bullish Momentum Faces Short-Term Headwinds

Despite this week’s rally, natural gas remains rangebound, with traders watching closely for a break above $3.438 to confirm bullish continuation toward $3.700+. Weather forecasts and export demand are supportive, but elevated supply and subdued power generation temper upside potential. In the short term, expect a cautiously bullish tone, contingent on heat holding in forecasts and prices maintaining technical support above the 200-day moving average at $3.169.

source : fxempire

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Adam

Stocks

Palo Alto Networks — Shares of the cybersecurity company dipped 3.7% after Palo Alto Network’s gross margin for the fiscal third quarter came out below estimates. The company still beat on earnings and revenue expectations, however.

UnitedHealth— Shares dropped more than 6% after HSBC downgraded the health insurance giant, saying valuations are still elevated despite a recent rout.

Target— The retailer’s stock slipped 3.5% after Target missed first-quarter revenue estimates and cut its full-year sales outlook. Executives blamed tariff uncertainty, weaker discretionary spending and backlash to the company’s rollback of key diversity, equity and inclusion efforts for its performance.

Lowe’s— Shares of the home improvement retailer rose 2%. Lowe’s reaffirmed its full-year forecast, putting the retailer on track for year-over-year sales growth. Lowe’s also reported earnings of $2.92 per share, beating an LSEG estimate of $2.88 per share. Revenue of $20.93 billion came out just shy of the $20.94 billion expected.

Toll Brothers— The homebuilder rose more than 4% after fiscal second-quarter results topped expectations. Toll Brothers reported $3.50 in earnings per share on $2.74 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG were looking for $2.83 per share in earnings and $2.48 billion in revenue.

Carter’s— Shares of the children’s clothing company slid about 6% after Carters cut its quarterly dividend to 25 cents per share, down from 80 cents per share. The company’s chief executive said in a release that Carter’s dividend was misaligned with its level of profitability against the current market environment, and that higher tariffs could lead Carter’s to incur significantly higher product costs.

Wolfspeed— Shares of the semiconductor supplier plunged more than 60% after The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter that Wolfspeed is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks.

Xpeng— The Chinese EV maker rose than 5% in the premarket after a smaller-than-expected loss for the first quarter. Xpeng added it expects to deliver between 102,000 and 108,000 vehicles in the second quarter. That represents a year-over-year increase of more than 200%.

Source: cnbc

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Warren Takunda

Economic

For households across Britain, April was an awful month. Rising energy bills, broadband costs and the sharpest increase in water bills since privatisation – despite public anger over the quality of service offered – all added to the cost of living squeeze.

Economists had forecast a jump in inflation based on the flurry of annual bill increases. But at 3.5% – the highest rate in the G7 – the rise was bigger than the 3.3% rate predicted in the City, and will raise concerns at the Bank of England.

Most of the increase was down to energy costs, after a well-telegraphed 6.4% increase in the Ofgem consumer price cap. However, there was a much bigger leap in water and sewerage bills, where prices rose by a whopping 26.1%, the biggest annual increase since February 1988.

Although inflation had been cooling for several months, it was clear a jump in the headline rate would come as a consequence of the changes in utility bills, as well as a number of other price increases timed to land in April each year.

Inflation has been close to the 2% target since the middle of last year, having fallen back from a peak of more than 11% in late 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring. Now it is on the rise again, and Threadneedle Street forecasts it will peak at an average of 3.5% over the summer months and does not expect it to return to its 2% target until early 2027. Bigger Than Expected Inflation Jump Worsens Bank of England Dilemma_1

Bigger Than Expected Inflation Jump Worsens Bank of England Dilemma_1

Usually, inflation sticking above the Bank’s target for so long would entirely rule out interest rate cuts. However, at 4.25%, official borrowing costs are squeezing businesses and households at a time when there are concerns about economic growth given heightened uncertainty as Donald Trump’s trade wars rattle the global economy.

In this world, policymakers are attempting to strike a balance between bearing down on inflation, while supporting activity in the economy. Given the higher-than-expected inflationary burst in April, there are concerns that the Bank will not be able to reduce borrowing costs by as much as hoped, even as economic uncertainty remains elevated.

There are, however, some signs that the rise in inflation should prove temporary. Business leaders have been warning about the impact of the government’s £25bn increase in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) – introduced last month – being passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Economists say there was some evidence in the April data, after services inflation – which is more sensitive to labour costs – sharply strengthened on the month, from 4.7% to 5.4%. To many business groups this was a clear sign of costs being passed on.

However, the picture is not entirely clear. Much of the overshoot was caused by the timing of Easter. The Office for National Statistics highlighted that it gathered its data for consumer prices during this year’s Easter holidays, when travel and tourism companies sharply increase prices. Because it gathered last year’s data outside the long bank holiday weekend, the inflation rate – which measures the change in price from a year earlier – is unflatteringly high.