Take Five: Another bout of bitcoin fever
(Reuters) -Bitcoin is back in the headlines, having roared to a new record high, just as many of the world's major central banks are starting to pave the way towards cutting interest rates, but only if inflation behaves.
Investment flows into cryptocurrencies, inflation numbers from the United States, China and the UK, as well as a potentially market-moving snap election in Portugal will all be under the microscope in the coming week.
Here is your week-ahead look at global markets from Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Li Gu in Shanghai and Dhara Ranasinghe, Elizabeth Howcroft and Amanda Cooper in London.
1/ BOOMING BITCOIN
Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high above $70,000, bringing it back above where it was in November 2021, when rates were low and «blockchain» and «Web3» were all the rage.
That 2021 boom was followed by a «crypto winter» fraught with bankruptcies and collapses at the biggest crypto firms that left millions out of pocket. Various crypto executives were hit with criminal charges and regulators stepped up their warnings about the risks.
But this does not seem to have deterred a new wave of money from coming in. No one knows for sure what's driving the gains, although analysts point to the billions of dollars that have flowed into U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs that launched this year.
Crypto fans say the industry has matured, but central bankers and regulators are still wary. Now investors are wondering: how much bigger can it get and is it different this time?
2/ EYE ON CPI
Tuesday's U.S. inflation report could help answer one of the key questions hovering over markets — when can the Federal Reserve start cutting interest rates?
The consumer price index for February is expected to rise 0.4%, after January's
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