Nasdaq ends terrible week 6% lower, crypto-stocks drop 20%

Just like at the beginning of August, when Asian stock markets dragged the rest of the world down (because the ‘Yen-carry trade’ had a fairly bad moment), the month of September has also started poorly for both stock markets and crypto prices. While the largest digital coins were able to limit losses (Bitcoin’s price dropped by some 6% in the past week), well-known crypto stocks such as Coinbase and Marathon Digital fell as much as 20% in a matter of days.

What’s going on?

The stock of crypto platform Coinbase had its worst week of the year. Major Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital fell as much as 20%. A number of crypt-related stocks have fallen to their lowest levels since February.

Ether and Bitcoin themselves are not doing much better (although they managed to limit the loss on a weekly basis) while tech stocks such as Nvidia and Tesla have been on sale for several months now (Nvidia reached a peak in July).

The tech-heavy stock exchange Nasdaq lost almost 6% in a week that was already one day shorter because the Americans had Monday off and the Dutch AEX also fell sharply with a weekly loss of 4%.

From a technical perspective, the Nasdaq 100 chart looks more troubling than S&P 500. $NDQ is back into technical correction (-10% from cycle high) on its worst week since Oct 2022.

And from a weekly perspective, this looks like a large head-and-shoulders pattern: pic.twitter.com/uBoPCCsvM9

— John Kicklighter (@JohnKicklighter) September 6, 2024

Investors are increasingly concerned about the US’s slowing economy.

The sell-off accelerated on Friday when the latest US jobs report showed that far fewer new jobs were created last month than expected. The economy added 142,000 jobs, whereas Wall Street had expected a figure well over 163,000. The figures from previous months were also revised downwards (which will probably also be the case for this figure when it gets a revision next month).

Of course, the prices of bitcoin, ether and other so-called risky assets in general usually take a harder hit in comparison to defensive stocks or T-bills.

#Bitcoin history repeating itself ?
Crash coming ? pic.twitter.com/VQbRVGCNZg

— Witco Wavers (@WaversClub_CN) September 7, 2024

Powell

As has been the case all year, investors are counting on Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell to come to their rescue within two weeks and announce a significant interest rate cut. How large that cut will be is unclear, but most major banks on Wall Street are hoping for 0.5%. Any lower rate cut (or even no cut at all) could cause a small crash in an already nervous market.

Lastly, since the election campaign between Harris and Trump is now in full swing, any major intervention by the White House into the economy at this point would be seen as an advantage for Harris, and would be used against her by her opponent; hence analysts are not counting on it.

Mind you, the stock markets (and Bitcoin) are still showing a nice profit for the entire year, but the last few months have been stormy to say the least. Hopefully next week will show improvement.