Rising concern over a potential second wave of COVID-19 have spooked the world’s stock markets, which means that the short-term correlation with U.S. stocks that we have witnessed on occasion over the past few months has returned.

The reason for this concern is fresh COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S., China, and elsewhere (e.g. the Middle East).

Earlier today, Dr. William Schaffner of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine told CNBC show “Street Signs Asia”) during an interview that people were not being careful, which is especially dangerous especially during mass gatherings, and that this was helping the coronavirus to spread:

“I think the second wave has begun.

“We’re opening up across the country, but many, many people are not social distancing, many are not wearing their masks.”

As for BBC News, it reported today that “Beijing has recorded 36 new locally-transmitted coronavirus cases, amid fears of a second wave in the Chinese capital.” Apparently, this most recent outbreak “has been linked to the city’s largest wholesale market.”

As of 08:42 UTC on June 15, futures for the Dow, S&P 500, and the Nasdaq were down 2.55%, 2.12%, and 1.73% respectively.

Crypto analyst Mason Jang, who is the Chief Strategy Officer (CSL) at South Korean blockchain analytics startup CryptoQuant says that Bitcoin whales have responded to these worrying developments by rapidly moving their coins to centralized crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini, as evidenced by the netflows into the hot wallets owned by these exchanges:

One crypto analyst/investor that has noticed the return of Bitcoin’s correlation with U.S. stocks — something we have witnessed over the past few months during periods of financial market stress — is Matthew Kaye, Managing Partner at crypto-focused investment firm Blockhead Capital,who tweeted on June 12:

And a few hours ago, Kaye commented:

According to data from CryptoCompare, between last Thursday (June 11) — the day that U.S. stocks suffered their biggest loss since “Black Thursday” (March 12) — the Bitcoin price has dropped from $9,937, the intraday high on June 11, to where it is now, i.e. $9,121, which means a loss of 8.2%:

2 Week BTC-USD chart on 15 June 2012.png

 

Featured Image by “DarkoStojanovic” via Pixabay.com