The markets reconsider the Fed’s rate reduction while Bitcoin fluctuates around $44,000 on US employment data

As the price movement of Bitcoin cools down after last week’s vertical rise, traders are shifting their attention to altcoins.

As market hopes for an interest rate reduction were dampened by disappointing US job statistics, Bitcoin reached $44,000 shortly after the December 8 Wall Street open.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released official figures showing that nonfarm payrolls were 199,000, which was more than expected, and that the unemployment rate was 3.7%, which was lower than expected.

While other statistics had previously shown falling inflation, markets reacted cautiously to the labor numbers because they implied the full effect of the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening had not yet been seen.

Prior to the November employment data, markets believed that rate cuts starting in March 2024 had a 60% chance of happening.

The chances of the Fed doing anything other than freezing interest rates at next week’s meeting, according to data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, are almost nil.

During the data, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) was very volatile, reaching a high for the first time since November 20 before retracing its losses to 103.8 as of this writing.

Bitcoin avoided a straight decline amid dwindling optimism about the impending arrival of reduced interest rates, in contrast to gold’s 0.8% decline.

The biggest cryptocurrency remained trapped in a trading range that spanned several days as investors sought confirmation of a trend continuation.

“Bitcoin is still consolidating in an uptrend and holding strong after the recent move,” the well-known expert Matthew Hyland noted in an analysis on X (previously Twitter). At the same time, expert and trader Daan Crypto Trades saw a lot of action close to the current price.

Also Read: Putin Slams Biden as “absurd” and Denies Russia’s Aggression Plans