Weekly Update 18 Aug 2017

Bonds, stocks, and currencies were lower, but digital tokens and commodities were mixed. Bitcoin rose 12.2% while Ethereum dropped 5.2%. Coffee was the weakest asset class, falling 9.4%.

The Canadian Dollar and Chinese Yuan were the best performing national currencies, off by 0.1% and 0.2% respectively. The Euro fell the most, dropping 1.1%. Bonds were lower, with the 20+ year TLT off 0.6%, the 1-3 year SHY losing 0.8% and USD cash (notes of zero maturity) dropping 0.7%.

Bitcoin rose to a new all-time-high of 108.1 grams on Wednesday the 16th, then pulled back to close the week at 99.8 grams, up 12.8%. Ethereum fell gradually throughout the week, ending down 5.2%. Considering that it was up 38.2% the prior week, this is a modest pullback.

All stock indexes fell, but the Nikkei 225 was the weakest index, dropping 2.2%. The Euro STOXX was almost unchanged, off just 0.1%. The DJIA was off 1.6% while the S&P 500 fell 1.4%. Gold stocks were down 1.5%.

Palladium was the strongest of the commodities (up 3.0%). Coffee fell the most, dropping 9.4%. Platinum and silver dropped 0.6% and 0.4% respectively.