Bitcoin (BTC) Continues To Look For Direction As Bulls Fail To Take Control

Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading in a very predictable manner for the most part of the ongoing bear trend. There have been times when the price made sudden unpredictable moves that had far reaching consequences, but most of such periods were neither bullish nor bearish. In fact, a case could be made for both bullish and bearish setups around those points. However, most of the time the trading patterns for BTC/USD were pretty straightforward. For instance, when the price would enter a rising wedge, it would break to the downside most of the time and when it would enter a falling wedge it would break to the upside most of the time. While the price still breaks to the downside most of the time it enters a rising wedge, the converse no longer appears to be true.

If we look at the 4H chart for BTC/USD, we can see that the price entered a rising wedge around November 25, 2018. The price broke below the rising wedge halfway trading inside that wedge. However, when the price entered a falling wedge around December 25, 2018 we saw it trade all the way inside the wedge and it still did not break to the upside but ended up breaking sideways. This is very disappointing for the bulls and shows that there is still a significant lack of bullish momentum for the price to stage a strong comeback. Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading within an ascending channel since November, 2018 and has respected its boundaries so far. However, it does not appear to be ready for an anticipated move to the top of this channel.

If we look at the BTC/USD chart from another angle, we can see that the price seems to have found support atop the trend line that previously used to be a resistance and has now turned into support. The bull flag seen on the chart is still valid and could still result in a strong move to the upside. In some of our previous analyses, we mentioned that major investors in this market might be waiting for a monthly close on the S&P 500 before they can decide on Bitcoin (BTC). The bulls have a green light on that front as the S&P 500 (SPX) closed well above the 21 Month EMA and invalidated the Kiss of Death signal. More important than that, the stock market had its best January in 30 years!

All of this goes on to show that the Fed is not only going to step back but it is ready to help the stock market. The Fed seems to have taken a 180 degree turn on the quantitative tightening policy that it was so eager to pursue until recently. Trump started a trade war with China and bullied the Fed into rolling back its QT policy. Now that the Fed realizes that just abandoning or postponing its QT policy is not going to ‘make things better’, it is going to resort to some good old QE (quantitative easing) to help the markets. The way it concerns Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies is that borrowing is expected to get cheaper in light of the Fed’s recent policy shift and all of a sudden people are going to start using their credit cards again to FOMO into the market once we see a few monthly candles close in the green.