Bitcoin’s Maintains Lukewarm Performance Amid S&P 500 Record High

In the current financial climate, experts have noted that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is expected to maintain steady interest rates. The meeting is scheduled for January 30 and 31.

The Fed is reportedly maintaining the status quo due to recent economic data that has been better than expected. Bloomberg analysts note that the focus is now shifting to the FOMC’s March meeting and beyond, with expectations that any policy easing might commence only after that.

Amid this, Wall Street closed the week positively, with the S&P 500 touching a record high on Friday. This surge, particularly evident in technology companies, has propelled the main US equity benchmark to surpass its previous peak from January 2022, as noted by the Financial Times.

Tech correlation: a sloppy indicator

In contrast to the surging stock market, Bitcoin’s performance remains moderate. The king coin is currently priced under $42,000. It has a trading volume of $7.267 billion over 24 hours, based on CoinGecko data. This lukewarm response in the cryptocurrency market comes on the sidelines of some equity market optimism. However, the keyword here is ‘some’ considering few analysts believe this is just an early optimism before the release of quarterly results. However, there is an expectation that the market will remain upbeat.

Kevin Davitt, the head of options content at Nasdaq, pointed out that Bitcoin and the NDX have a fairly high correlation of 0.805. However, he mentioned that there are times when this correlation weakens, which could present investment opportunities in Bitcoin and other funds. Therefore, the stock market alone isn’t an indicator of Bitcoin’s trajectory.

Bitcoin price action subdued

Pantera Capital recently noted in an analysis that cryptocurrency bull cycles typically have two phases. They note that while the initial stage sees Bitcoin outperforming the alt market, it is followed by the second phrase. The latter is a period where altcoins gain prominence. This shift, according to Pantera, comes as investors seek higher-growth tokens driven by innovations, leading to altcoins outperforming Bitcoin.

If the rate cuts coincide with the halving schedule, Bitcoin is expected to clock in major gains. However, Bitcoin’s dominance, which was almost 55% last week, has come down. As per TradingView, it stands at 51% at the time of writing. As investors increasingly turn towards altcoins, the market could see more pronounced growth in the broader market, but that is what can keep Bitcoin range-bound.

Given this pattern and the current macroeconomic sentiments, Bitcoin’s performance in the next few weeks could continue to be in a phase of steady price action. But at this time, market confidence remains high due to the recent approval of the Bitcoin ETFs.