The heavy selling in the U.S. dollar market at the end of last week assisted Bitcoin (BTC) to climb above $49,000. However, BTC struggled to extend its climb above $50,000, a psychological resistance level, as investors remained cautious about the Federal Reserve’s taper timing.
In detail, the Fed chairman Jerome Powell delivered a mildly dovish outlook during his speech on Friday at the annual Jackson Hole symposium. At one point, he refrained from providing hints regarding when the Fed would start unwinding its $120 billion a month asset purchasing program.
Powell noted that they would begin tapering sometime by the end of 2021, albeit admitting that the fast-spreading Delta variant of the Covid-19 could play spoiler.
“We will be carefully assessing incoming data and the evolving risks,” he said.
“Timing and pace of taper will not be intended to carry a direct signal regarding the timing of interest rate liftoff.”
At the same time, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that annual Core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price, which the Fed considers its preferred inflation metric, remained unchanged at 3.6%, about 1.6% higher than the central bank’s intended target.
Things to focus on next week
The first half of the week has no major macroeconomic events that could directly or indirectly impact Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market.
But on Sep. 1, the Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Research Institute will reveal August’s private sector employment data. Additionally, investors will likely watch the ISM Manufacturing PMI for its Prices Paid component. In doing so, they could gauge input price pressures in the manufacturing sector to determine inflation.
On Friday, the Non-farm Payroll (NFP) data expects to show that the U.S. economy added 763,000 jobs in August, about 19% lower than July’s print of 943,000. As a result, disappointing job data could delay the Fed’s decision to taper its asset purchase program and help boost the price of risk assets, including Bitcoin.
Technical setup
Technically, Bitcoin has been trending inside a short-term ascending channel, hinting at a move towards the lower trendline (near $47,000) for a potential pullback towards the upper trendline (above $50,000).
An extended sell-off below the Channel’s lower trendline could risk crashing the BTC/USD exchange rates towards the 200-4H exponential moving average (200-4H EMA; the yellow wave) at near $44,600.
The downside target appears closer to the one visible on the weekly chart.
The BTC/USD exchange rate has been testing the 0.786-line (near $50,779) of the Fibonacci retracement graph following a 75.36% bullish move. As a result, an extended pullback move from the said price ceiling brings Bitcoin’s next downside target near the 0.618-Fib line (around $43,886).
Conversely, a neutral RSI reading (below 70) may assist the bulls to reclaim $50,000 for a bullish breakout move. In doing so, they could target levels near $60,000 as their next upside target.
