Market wrap: bitcoin dips slightly, while ethereum edges higher
Stocks were down on Thursday. Major altcoins also dipped.
The cryptocurrency market traded marginally lower on Thursday, much like traditional assets. The CoinDesk Market Index, a broad-based index designed to measure the crypto market’s performance, is down 0.28%.
Editor’s note: All price references were taken at 9:30 pm WAT
Here’s your Thursday evening market update.
Bitcoin and ethereum price action
- Bitcoin (BTC) is down far today — hovering around the psychologically important $20,000 market. The cryptocurrency has dipped below the $20,000 mark twice today — first around 3 pm WAT and second around 5 pm WAT.
- Ethereum (ETH) is up roughly 0.4% today, changing hands for $1.360 each. ETH has been relatively stable today without any wild swings in prices.
Tradfi
- U.S equities: United States stocks fell slightly on Thursday. The country’s top benchmarks, S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average, dipped 1.02% and 1.15%, respectively. U.S. investors are anticipating Friday’s labor market report to gauge the state of the economy ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting early next month.
- European equities closed Thursday trading session lower, with prominent index Europe Stoxx 600 down 0.5%. This follows reports that manufacturing activities in the Eurozone dropped to a 27-month low in September.
- The S&P Global’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), a measure of factory output, came in at 48.4 in September vs. 49.6 in August. This further cements expert predictions of a recession in Europe within a year.
- African equities were mostly down on Thursday. Nigerian, South African and Kenyan stocks were down 3.23%, 1.05% and 1.87%, respectively.
Altcoin price update
- Binance’s BNB coin has dipped by 1.74% to approximately $289.2.
- Chainlink’s LINK token is down roughly 2.5% to $7.7
- MATIC coin of the Polygon network is down 1.8% to $0.84
- Ripple’s XRP coin is up 2.19% to approximately $0.5
