Cryptocurrencies moved lower; national currencies, stocks, bonds and commodities were mixed. Coffee, up 4.8%, and cotton, up 4.5%, made the largest gains. The largest losses were in Ether, down 13.3%, and the CCi30 crypto index, off 11.5%.
The Chinese Yuan was the best performing national currency (up 1.9%), while the Japanese Yen was the worst (down 0.1%). The US Dollar gained 0.5%. Short term notes underperformed cash, rising 0.4%, and long term bonds did much worse, falling 1.0%.
Ethereum started the week on an upnote, but collapsed on Monday and Tuesday, dropping 19.5% to 48.5 grams before recovering to close at 52.2 grams, down 13.3%. News of yet another Chinese crypto crack down, along with fear of a Chinese real estate melt-down seemed to be the key drivers. Bitcoin (and many other cryptos) followed a similar pattern, but BTC fell less and recovered more robustly, ending the week at 762.8 grams, off 8.9%.
Gold stocks fell 2.5% and the Japanese Nikkei index closed down 1.0%, but other equity indexes moved higher by about one percent. The Dow Industrials did slightly better than its peers, adding 1.1%.
The week's biggest winners were commodities, as coffee rose 4.8%, cotton gained 4.5%, and crude oil rallied 3.3%. Outside of crypto, palladium was the week's largest loser, closing down 3.5%. Silver also declined, giving up 1.0%; the rest of the metals did better, as platinum added 2.2% and copper rose 1.5%.
Year over year, only gold stocks (down 23.5%), palladium (down 6.4%) and long bonds (off 3.9%) are at a loss. Cryptos are still the strongest asset class by far, especially Ether, which is up 880.7%. Aside from crypto, crude oil (up 95.6%), and coffee (up 86.4%), are the best performers.
Click for PDF version
