Key points
- US producer prices for final demand rose 1.3% in September, per the BLS, the largest monthly rise since March 2022 and double the 0.6% forecast in Investing.com’s consensus. The annual rate hit 6.3%.
- Bitcoin spiked to $81,313 in the minutes after the 12:30 UTC release, then faded. It printed $79,987.1 on Kraken in the first five minutes of the US equity session, its first trade under $80,000 there since 18 September.
- The Asia low of $80,150, flagged in this morning’s First Print, is now broken. The next marked level is Friday’s $78,000 put strike.
The first reaction was a bounce. The second was the real one.
Bitcoin had spent the European morning near $81,000 to $81,450, holding above the overnight low. At 12:30 UTC the Bureau of Labor Statistics said final-demand producer prices rose 1.3% in September after 0.5% in August. Goods prices jumped 2.6%, the most since the series began in December 2009, and more than 80% of that came from energy, up 10.8%. Gasoline alone rose 20.3%. Services rose 0.8%. The narrower gauge that strips out foods, energy and trade services rose 0.5% on the month and 5.0% on the year.
Retail sales landed at the same minute and also beat. The Census Bureau’s advance estimate showed sales up 0.8% to $745.0 billion, against a 0.3% consensus, with August revised up to 1.3%. The figures are not adjusted for prices, though. Gasoline-station sales rose 6.4%, and sales excluding autos and gasoline rose only 0.2%.
What the tape did
Kraken’s 12:30 UTC five-minute candle opened at $80,993, ran to $81,313 and closed at $80,653. The hour ended at $80,466. Selling resumed into the 13:30 UTC cash open, and the 13:30 five-minute candle printed the $79,987.1 low before a quick rebound to about $80,600. Coinbase’s hourly low was $80,000.00 to the cent. At 13:48 UTC Kraken showed bitcoin at $80,402, ether at $2,345 (down 3.0% on the UTC day), Solana at $101.75 and XRP at $1.296.
Put simply, producer prices measure what businesses receive for their goods and services. They often lead consumer prices, so a jump straight after Wednesday’s CPI market read adds to the case for the Federal Reserve to stay tight at its 27 to 28 October meeting.
Bonds took the print more calmly than crypto. The US 10-year yield was near 5.06% on Yahoo Finance quotes after the release, roughly where it stood at 12:58 UTC, and well below Wednesday’s 5.30%. S&P 500 futures were near 7,735, against 7,745 before the data. Brent crude was near $104.80.
Derivatives
Leverage is still building, not leaving. Deribit’s perpetual open interest rose to about $886 million at 13:48 UTC, from roughly $870 million in the European morning. The eight-hour funding rate stayed slightly positive at about 0.0029%, and OKX’s BTC-USDT swap funding was about 0.0036%. Deribit’s DVOL implied-volatility index ticked up to about 40.1, from 39.6 at 09:00 UTC.
Friday’s 08:00 UTC expiry is put-heavy. Deribit showed 18,004 BTC of open interest on 16 October options, with puts outnumbering calls 1.35 to one. The two biggest lines are the $78,000 put (2,747 BTC) and the $80,000 put (2,138 BTC), the same strikes that our week-ahead calendar marked on Sunday.
The levels
$80,000 is now the line. A daily close below it would leave the $78,000 put strike as the next marker into Friday’s expiry. Above, Tuesday’s $80,951 low is the first lid, then $81,313, the post-print spike high. Monday’s $84,250 remains the mood line for this desk, and bitcoin traded further below it today than at any point this week.
The other view
The dip below $80,000 lasted minutes, and the rebound to $80,600 came straight away. Bulls can argue that energy did most of the damage in both prints, that bond yields did not jump, and that retail spending outside autos and fuel was soft rather than hot. On that read, a hawkish Fed is already priced. But spot bitcoin ETFs lost $261.4 million on Wednesday, per the ETF Desk on Wednesday’s outflows, and rising open interest into a falling price suggests fresh shorts are pressing the move. That case needs a close back above $80,951 first.
As of 13:48 UTC, bitcoin was trading near $80,400 on Kraken and Coinbase.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.