Commodities and Cryptos: Oil and Gold rally, Bitcoin falls alongside big-tech stocks

Oil

Crude prices are rallying after another round of important rate decisions in Europe suggest the growth outlook remains mostly upbeat despite the current omicron variant surge.  The BOE shocked many traders by delivering a rate hike and despite a lot of dovishness from the ECB, the growth forecasts suggest the crude demand outlook probably won’t deteriorate much further once this Omicron wave is over.

The dollar is broadly weaker and that has provided some underlying support with today’s oil price rally.

Gold

Gold prices got its groove back as the dollar weakened and the Treasury curve flattened. Risk aversion is hitting the Nasdaq and that has some traders going into cyclicals, while others are buying safe-havens such as gold.  Gold is tentatively fighting against massive resistance from the psychological $1800 level and 200-day SMA.

If Wall Street is ready to abandon the short-term call for dollar dominance, gold could easily make a run back towards last month’s high over the next couple of months.  Omicron data from South Africa could be key over the next couple of days for the safe-haven trade.  If COVID deaths start to surge in South Africa, this omicron wave might prove more worrisome to the global economic outlook than initially thought.

The number of short-term risks remain elevated and that could ultimately lead to further inflows to gold now that much of Fed tapering and the initial rate hikes have been fully priced in.

Bitcoin
Bitcoin and big-tech are getting punished today as investors reallocate some of their more profitable risky bets.  The crypto space is seeing a lot of repositioning and that is leading to some unwanted selling pressure, but the medium- and -long-term outlooks remain firmly in place.

Bitcoin did not get any favors from the International Monetary Fund after they reiterated to El Salvador that “the risks arising from using Bitcoin as legal tender need to be addressed”.  El Salvador serves as a trial balloon for many countries and its crypto success could be key for unleashing other emerging market countries to follow suit.

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