Commodities and Cryptos: Oil higher, Crude’s good week, Gold rises, Bitcoin can’t hold $50k

Oil
WTI crude seems to be following US stocks more so than stockpile data. This is ending up being a rather good week for crude prices as the crude demand outlook hit from Omicron might be limited.  OPEC+ continues to have a firm handle on the direction of prices and can disrupt any selloffs with a quick reverse of their output increase.
Once Europe gets beyond this wave of restrictive movements and the north stops seeing milder weather, the rally in oil prices could easily make a run towards the highs seen last month.

Gold
Gold is slowly getting its mojo back after a hot inflation report mostly matched estimates.  A lot of the inflation is stickier than anyone wants and that should keep gold’s medium- and- long-term outlooks bullish. Gold just needs to survive a firm consensus on how many rate hikes the Fed will start off with next year.  An accelerated rate hiking cycle is a big risk and could trigger panic selling that could prove troublesome for gold in the short-term, but that still seems unlikely to happen.
Gold’s recent trading range of $1760 and $1800 might continue to hold up leading into next week’s FOMC decision.

Bitcoin
Before the US inflation report, many traders were noticing that Ethereum dominance is settling in. This has been a tough week for cryptos and Ethereum mostly outperformed. The global crypto market cap is around $2.2 trillion and while Bitcoin is still king with 39% dominance, Ethereum has now earned 20%. There is still a lot of motivation for more crypto products to be created and the growth outlook next year should limit whatever selling pressure enters.
Bitcoin prices initially after US inflation hit a 39-year high, but the rally stalled after reaching the $50,000 level. Given what happened last weekend, some leveraged traders are thinking twice about holding positions into this weekend. Some traders are anticipating a sideways market until the FOMC policy decision on Wednesday, so hesitancy to hold over the weekend might grow. Hodlers will likely remain unfazed and feel mostly confident as need for inflation hedges will grow given the widespread rising pricing trends.

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