Sea Of Red In Markets As Headwinds Grow

 | Nov 20, 2018 06:33AM ET

A sea of red across equity markets suggest we’re heading for another turbulent session as investors come to terms with another sell-off on Monday and an increasingly wobbly tech sector.

With FAANG stocks now all in bear market territory and not yet coming to the rescue of the rest of the market, investors have been left wondering if this is going to get messy or whether Black Friday has come a little early in stock markets. There still appears to be a lot of underlying anxiety in the markets which may prolong the current sell-off a little longer, with trade wars, US interest rates, Brexit and the Italian budget standoff all being significant headwinds.

A number of these could subside in the coming weeks, which may put investors at ease a little, although of course that assumes worst case scenarios in each don’t materialise which particularly in the case of Brexit, they could. This could lay the groundwork for the fabled Santa rally as we enter the final weeks of the year.

h3 Sky no longer the limit for bitcoin, ground below looking increasingly unsteady/h3

Volatility has returned to the crypto space after months of increasingly tighter ranges and relatively sparse news flow. Unfortunately, contrary to last year, the news that’s flowing is mostly bad and while the size of the moves are rather familiar, the price action is in the opposite direction. As we quite often see in this space, negative news is rarely confined to a particular instrument and once the Bitcoin domino falls, the rest quickly follow.

To be honest, this has been building for some time. Enthusiasts may have looked at bitcoin’s ability to hold above $6,000 as a sign of a market bottoming but the warning signs were there each time it failed to make a new high on a rebound – most notably in March, May, July and even September.

Bitcoin (Bitstamp) Daily Chart