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Why The Bitcoin Bubble Could Be Dangerous

May 25, 2017, 4:00pm EST                                                                                        Invest Alongside Billionaires For $297/Qtr

We talked yesterday about run up in bitcoin. The price of bitcoin jumped another 14% today before falling back.

As I said yesterday, it looks like Chinese money is finding it’s way out of China (despite the capital controls) and finding a home in bitcoin (among other global assets). If you own it, be careful. The last time the price of bitcoin ran wild, was 2013. It took about 11 days to triple, and about 18 days to give it all back. This time around, it’s taken two months to triple (as of today).

If you’re looking for a warning signal on why it might not be sustainable (this bitcoin move), just look at the behavior across global markets. It’s not exactly an environment that would inspire confidence.

Gold is flat. Interest rates are soft. Stocks are constantly climbing. Commodities are quiet, except for oil — which fell back below $50 today on news that OPEC did indeed agree to extend its production cuts out to March of next year (bullish, though oil went south).

When the story is confusing, conviction levels go down, and cash levels go up (i.e. people de-risk). And maybe for good reason.

In looking at the bitcoin chart today, I thought back to the run up in Chinese stocks in early 2015. Here’s a look at the two charts side by side, possibly influenced by a lot of the same money.

 

The crash in Chinese stocks took global markets with it. It’s often hard to predict that catalyst that might prick a bubble and even harder to see the links that might lead to broader market instability. In this case, though, there are plenty of signs across markets that things are a little weird.

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Bryan: