There’s no question that gold has been incredibly resilient through this recent market downdraft. From August 31st to September 9th gold has fallen -2% while the Nasdaq was down -6%.
During bouts of market volatility it’s critical for investors to monitor the market internals, gold falling isn’t has much of a concern as gold underperforming risk asset classes (ie. Nasdaq) – that would imply investors are abandoning the precious metals safe haven trade.
Over the same period however Bitcoin was down -15% and Ethereum fell -29%, clearly investors are lumping digital currencies as “risk asset” classes during bouts of market volatility.
This isn’t the narrative the Bitcoin bulls want, there are two reasons BTC doesn’t fully embrace the “store of safety” as yet:
- Bitcoin is still a very immature asset class, having been created in 2009. Participants are still navigating and establishing the volatility profile of the asset, overtime as trading hands get stronger we would expect these wild swings to tapper down significantly.
- As a “digital currency”, during market selloffs that are lead by technology stocks investors are more likely to paint Bitcoin with the same brush and sell along with their speculative tech names.
We believe there is an interesting catch-up trade in Bitcoin right now relative to gold currently. As gold rises we believe both Bitcoin and Silver will outperform gold.
The opinions provided in this article are those of the author and do not constitute investment advice. Readers should assume that the author and/or employees of Grizzle hold positions in the company or companies mentioned in the article. For more information, please see our Content Disclaimer.