From Cointelegraph · By William Suberg
Bitcoin (BTC) hovered around $68,700 following Friday’s Wall Street open, rebounding from an earlier dip to roughly $67,500.
Key points:
Bitcoin failed to reclaim the $70,000 mark after hitting about $67,500 on Friday, its lowest level since mid-August.
The US Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 6.5% year over year in October, 0.1 percentage points below expectations but still the largest increase since November 2022.
Rekt Capital warned that a weekly close below $73,000 could mark Bitcoin’s third break of that support level in 2026.
US PPI sees largest yearly gain since Q4 2022
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD down 4% on the day after bouncing from a roughly 12-week low near $67,500.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The US Producer Price Index, which tracks changes in the prices domestic producers receive for their goods and services, rose 0.3% month over month and 6.5% year over year in October. Both readings were 0.1 percentage points below market expectations but the annual increase was the largest since November 2022.
“Leading the October advance in final demand prices, the index for final demand goods increased 0.5 percent. Prices for final demand services moved up 0.2 percent,” the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday.
US PPI one-month percentage change. Source: BLS
Stocks showed little sign of relief at the start of the US trading session, with traders still parsing developments around Nvidia after its co-founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, resigned on Thursday.
The S&P 500 was down 1.2% at the time of writing, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was 1.5% lower.
Nasdaq Composite Index one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The PPI release led markets to slightly adjust expectations for Federal Reserve rate hikes. Odds of a minimal 25-basis-point hike at the Fed’s December meeting rose from 85.4% on Thursday to 89.7%, while odds of a larger 50-basis-point move decreased from 14.5% to 10.3%, per data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
Fed target-rate probability comparison for the December FOMC meeting. Source: CME Group
Economist Robin Brooks described a 25-basis-point hike in December as “all but inevitable.” He argued, however, against a steeper increase, seeing it as ineffective in the face of current inflation drivers: the oil-price spike from the US-Iran war and potential long-term acceleration in underlying inflation.
“If high inflation is about the Strait of Hormuz and oil, 75 basis points won’t do anything about that. If the issue is that the pace of underlying inflation has risen, then 75 basis points is much too timid to get this under control,” he wrote.